


Fever

by feelslikefire



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Monsters, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 66,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1281601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelslikefire/pseuds/feelslikefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finally getting out of the hospital, Mizuki finds that picking up the pieces of his life is at once easier and much harder than he had expected. Aoba's friend Clear is a strange but intriguing new presence, if only he'd take off that weird gas-mask. But when a frightening change comes over Midorijima, Mizuki has to decide what's really important to him. Mizuki/Clear with horror-movie plot, plus background Koujaku/Aoba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jawbone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jawbone/gifts).



> This fic was supposed to be a one-off 5,000-word present for [joannaestep](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/), and then, because I am me, it morphed into this 50k monstrosity. All the thanks in the world go to [circ_bamboo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo) for beta-ing this beast for me despite not being in the fandom, and kisses to joannaestep for doing the GORGEOUS art for it!
> 
> Additionally, there is now a playlist for this work; you can find the tumblr post (with more art by joannaestep!) [here](http://feels-like-fire.tumblr.com/post/80268900983/electric-feel-dmmd-fanmix), and you can listen to it on 8tracks [here](http://8tracks.com/feelslikefire/electric-feel).

The beep of the monitor by the bed was getting... monotonous.

Mizuki supposed that was an improvement. After all, for a good two months there, he'd been so far down the rabbit hole that he hadn't even been able to hear the beep. It was the first thing he'd become aware of, laying on his back in a carefully-made hospital bed in a carefully-sterile hospital room, in a no-color hospital gown that was the antithesis of everything he'd tried to become: tattoos, hair dye, bruises, scars, metal studs, leather pants, workman's boots. All of it gone now.

No, not gone. Mizuki made the mental correction himself now, without any prompting from the psychologist-slash-physical therapist who visited him twice a week. Away. Waiting for him. Waiting for him to get it back.

He let his head flop back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling and wishing he had the energy to do more than wait for the nurse to come back. He allowed himself a brief but powerful fantasy of getting back all the vitality he’d been robbed of when his sense of reality had been shattered. First Morphine, with their silver-lined lies about power and relevance and safety from obsolescence, and then Aoba, however inadvertently, cracking his mind open like a nut and leaving him exposed—until his sanity had come crashing down around his ears.

But the beeping had come first, though he hadn’t recognized it for what it was right away. He'd wandered in madness for weeks, chasing after and chased by senseless monsters—faceless chattering things, tittering at him about how useless he was. Now and then he'd see Aoba, or Koujaku; they were always just out of reach, calling to him in concern but unable to see him—or worse, they would ignore him entirely, hands linked as they walked down the street away from him, oblivious to his increasingly desperate cries for help.

He'd heard the beep the day that he'd finally decided to just sit and wait out his fate. He'd stopped in front of a shop window that was vaguely reminiscent of the tailor's store (Akane and Keniichi, those were their names) and finally decided that he was _done_ running, at least for today. Mizuki turned around and sat his ass down on the concrete stoop, slouching till he could put his elbows on his knees, spine a C-curve of contemptuous disinterest. _Let the monsters come,_ his posture said. _I'm done with this shit._

The monsters came. But they'd stopped just feet from him, shouting their epithets at him. Little shadow-scunners that hissed and cussed and writhed their contempt of him, bulkier figures like boulders that had fallen off the side of the mountain and come looking for trouble, full of ill will like whatever avalanche had spawned them, but all of them kept their distance. Mizuki had sat and watched them, saying nothing, doing nothing. And bit by bit, Mizuki realized that every hissing voice that raised against him was actually his own.

 _Worthless_ , spat one voice. _**Washed-up,**_ hissed another. _Rib is over, who cares about such a silly game! Who cares about gangland wars?_ The accusations burnt like acid where they hit home, but after the sting was over, he was still here. These were his fears: his anxieties and worst nightmares, chasing him around and around and around this hellscape of his own making. And he wouldn't ever be rid of them, but he was tired of listening to them.

"Go away," he said. The cacophony lessened, then faded altogether. The nightmare host stood there, staring at them with their faceless heads. Mizuki stood, brushing his hands off on the top of his jeans. "Fuck off," he said, and his voice sounded stronger this time. "I'm tired of you. Go bother someone else for awhile."

He'd expected them to laugh at him. Or at best, to simply continue to stand there and stare. But one moment, he was surrounded by the stuff of his own worst nightmares, and the next, he was alone—the demons vanished as though they were never there.

"Shit," he said aloud. Mizuki stared this way and that down the empty alley. He took a few steps, his own footfalls echoing in the silence. Then he stopped, and listened.

The world was silent. What's more, it was dark; dark like the permanent night of Platinum Jail, dark like the bottom of a cave, dark like the end of the world. A few lights still burned here and there, but they guttered and wheezed, as though they'd been burning for a hundred years and were a few scant hours from giving up entirely.

But what was that... Mizuki squinted, peering towards the far end of the street, where in place of a billboard, a screen pulsed with the steady regularity of a piece of machinery.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._ Steady, evenly spaced, totally monotone. Each time the beep came, a green light jumped, up-down, then flatlined again for the space between beeps. Electric green, like... like...

Mizuki stared, dumbfounded. He was looking at his EKG monitor.

Somewhere, outside of himself, another monitor beeped, and a nurse came into the room and checked a few numbers. Then she pressed a button, never taking her eyes from the patient's still form. "Doctor," she said into the intercom, "I think I have some rapid-eye movement. Better come take a look."

It took another three weeks after that before Mizuki Ruizaki managed to open his eyes. But down inside the mess of his scrambled brain, that was the day that Mizuki realized that the world outside of himself still existed, still waited for him, and he found himself determined to return.

****

The first time Mizuki woke up, it was to the sight of two nurses and a doctor standing by his bed. He couldn't talk very well, but he followed them with his eyes, and managed a few weak noises in response to questions. He could do little more than that, and his strength had wasted to the point that even that small amount of effort taxed him to exhaustion. But before he slipped away to sleep again, he did take in a few details of the room he was in: plain, industrial green paneling on the walls, standard hospital cot, the expected array of goddamn machines lined up beside the bed, some bare piping exiting the ceiling and upper corners of the walls...

And on the floor and counter, a veritable hoard of flowers and cards, some stuffed animals, even some charms and prayer-cards from the nearest temple. The pile was so large that it had spilled over to the floor, an enormous stuffed jellyfish taking pride of place against the wall. Mizuki stared the longest at that; who the fuck would send him a goddamn jellyfish plushie? That was bizarre.

It was probably Aoba, he thought. The choice in stuffed animals was a little bizarre, but who else would think to bring him stuffed anything? He'd have to ask Aoba about it when... well, whenever Mizuki saw him next.

Whenever that was.

* * * * *

"Whenever" turned out to be the about a month and a half after Mizuki first woke up. He had to endure exhausting hours of physical and psychotherapy, slowly re-establishing the baseline of mental and physical health that would permit him to function in the normal world. Two weeks after he woke up, in the face of encouraging progress, the badly-done Morphine tattoo that had been inflicted on him over his own had grown infected and needed emergency removal, followed by a partial-thickness skin graft to speed the healing process. It further delayed his recuperation by a full 40 days. He told himself that at least he was able to get rid of the fucking Morphine tag this way.

The next time he woke up, in the wake of his skin graft, the pile of gifts by his bed had doubled in size. The giant stuffed jellyfish had been joined by two miniature jellyfish, and the first jellyfish now had a yellow scarf wrapped around it. The sight was so bizarre that Mizuki couldn't help but laugh, the noise startling out of him so badly that he broke into a coughing spasm after a few seconds of it. And it wasn't until the nurse came rushing in that he realized it was the first actual laughter he'd had since awakening.

He could tell Aoba had definitely been by to drop things off several times before—and Koujaku too, from the handwriting on the card Mizuki found by his bed—but it wasn't until he was sitting up and taking all of his meals the normal way, instead of via a damn tube, that Mizuki was finally permitted to have guests.

"There are some people here to see you," said the nurse, when Mizuki had woken up properly. Her name was… his mind went blank, with only a faint irritation where recognition should be. He should be better than this. She’d introduced herself; why couldn’t he remember her name?

He almost didn’t hear her question. "Are you feeling up to letting them in? Dr. Amano said that you can have visitors if you want, but otherwise I'll send them away."

"No, let them in." Mizuki hated how his voice sounded in his own ears, hoarse and rusty like an un-oiled hinge. 

For some dumb reason he was expecting one of his Rib teammates, but it was Aoba's face that greeted him as he came in through the door, followed close behind by Koujaku. Mizuki hid how weak he still was with a pile of pillows behind his back to help him sit up. He felt a huge grin break over his face as soon as his friends slipped into the room. "Aoba! Koujaku!"

"Hey, sleepyhead," Aoba said lightly. Even as wrecked as he was, Mizuki could read the anxiety in his friend's face, though Aoba had a smile fixed in place that said he wasn't about to mention any of it. "Nice of you to wake up enough for us to stop by."

Mizuki mimed shock, hand flying to his mouth. "Oh shit, I just remembered I have to go wash my hair..." Koujaku and Aoba both laughed, and Mizuki felt a reassuring warmth bloom in his chest, hot and vital like life's blood. Aoba and Koujaku sat down in the spare chairs by the bed that weren’t currently full of get-well presents, both of them moving gingerly, like if they weren't careful Mizuki might break again. "Come on," said Mizuki a touch reproachfully, though he was still smiling. "I promise I'm not gonna shatter if you get too close."

Aoba winced despite himself at those words. Instantly, Mizuki wanted to take them back. "I'm actually afraid of getting into a fight with you," Koujaku said mildly. "It's rude to beat a sick man."

"Whatever, I could still take you, you womanizing dirt-bag," Mizuki shot back.

"Oh, are you going to strangle me with your hospital gown? I'm so scared!" Koujaku was grinning at him now, and Aoba shot Koujaku a grateful look that Mizuki did not miss, but was not quite sharp enough to decode at the moment.

"I'm gonna ignore that," Mizuki said, "and instead give you both the chance to make up for being truly pathetic people by telling me what's been happening since I went into the hospital here."

“Oh, you know, nothing much.” Aoba shrugged lightly. “Just keepin’ on keepin’ on. Oh, and Toue Inc. is gone now.”

“WHAT!” Aoba dodged a thrown pillow, laughing, and then after another moment of incredulous badgering, he launched into his story. Or, he launched into _a_ story, about the two of them breaking into Platinum Jail and encountering some man from Koujaku’s past, only to have to escape post-haste when Oval Tower started falling apart around them. It was kind of a mess, and Mizuki actually had to stop them partway through to be given another dose of medication; he resolved to ask them about it again later, when he was more himself.

The rest of the time, they talked about nothing of import: Koujaku’s team’s shenanigans, and Aoba’s customers at Heibon Junk Shop, that kind of thing—just the comforting nonsense of everyday life. Despite how awkward the visit started out,and despite how tired he was by the time Koujaku and Aoba left, Mizuki was feeling much more cheerful. He'd have to be blind to miss how guilt-stricken Aoba was feeling, and he knew that it might take time to clear the air between them fully, but he was so grateful just to have seen his friends that he found it hard to worry too much.

If his friends were still his friends, then he still had a place in the world. The rest could come as it may.

* * * * *

Recovery takes a long time.

Mizuki spent most of his time sleeping. His progress was slow but steady, re-learning (or reawakening, really) the various muscles and nerves of his body, teaching himself how to do everything that used to come so easily. He'd never take being able to stand or dress himself for granted again, that was for sure.

As the days passed, he got more visitors. His Rib teammates came—the ones that had recovered themselves, that is. It burned Mizuki to hear how many of his team had been taken by Morphine. It burned worse to know that it was at least partially his fault that they'd been hurt. He was the one who'd listened to those two—Aoba's Yakuza friends, Virus and Trip. He was the one who'd believed their snake-oil offer, their promises of strength and support, of peace of mind. He should have known they were only selling lies, but he'd been so desperate that he'd chosen to believe them anyway.

The only good thing was that the majority of his team seemed to be responding to treatment. Many of them were already out; he'd apparently had it much worse than the rest of them, what with both the effects of Morphine and Aoba's strange abilities to recover from.

Strangely, though, despite how exhausted he was... he felt better. Mizuki would never say it to anyone, but he felt not unlike a cancer survivor— something dark and poisonous had been festering inside him, and he'd let it grow for far too long. But now it had finally been excised, and he could move on.

The sound of people talking was what woke him next. Mizuki stirred, and in the moments between sleep and wakefulness, the realization pierced him that while one voice was definitely Aoba's, the other was less familiar. Where had he heard that voice before...

"Oy, wake up, you lazybones!" Laboriously, without opening his eyes and with the air of someone doing something at great cost to himself, Mizuki lifted one hand and made a fist, rotating his wrist till his closed palm faced up. _What are you doing_ , he heard Aoba ask, or start to—the sight of Mizuki's raised middle finger cut him off mid-sentence and startled a laugh out of him. Only then did Mizuki crack an eye, grinning at his friend's mirth.

The stranger at Aoba's side leaned forward, and the sight of him was so bizarre that it took Mizuki's drowsy, recovering mind a few moments to figure out what he was looking at. "Mizuki-san, is your voice not working again?" the stranger asked worriedly—at least, Mizuki thought he sounded worried. The stranger was wearing a gas-mask, so it was impossible to see his face. Or much of the rest of him, really; the oversized lab coat and gloves made it hard to figure out what the guy looked like. Practically the only thing that was visible was the fluffy silver hair that poked out from under his gas-mask.

"Naw, don't worry, Clear," said Aoba reassuringly. "He's fine. He's just being a jackass."

"I'm wounded, Aoba," said Mizuki, and heaved a melodramatic sigh. "How could you be so spiteful?"

"He's not spiteful!" said the stranger quickly. "Master has been very worried about you!"

"Clear, hey, shut up—"

"He's been coming to visit you all the time! Even when you weren't awake yet!"

"Clear!"

Aoba jabbed his elbow into Clear's side, and the faceless stranger yelped. "Masterrrrrrrrr...." Aoba sighed, and flashed an embarrassed grin at Mizuki, who was watching this whole exchange bemusedly. "Why did you elbow me?" Clear asked petulantly.

"I'll explain later," said Aoba, and something about his air of resigned patience made Mizuki curious.

Also making him curious: "Master?" Mizuki arched an eyebrow at Aoba. "Koujaku know that you're getting kinky with gas-mask here when he's not around?"

"Mizuki!" It was Mizuki's turn to get a smack from Aoba, whose face had turned a plummy shade of indignant. "It's not like that! Clear is just a good friend! Whose cooking you don't even deserve, you ingrate."

"Getting kinky? What does Mizuki-san mean?" Clear cocked his head to one side, looking (presumably) from Aoba to Mizuki and back again. Aoba shot Mizuki a glare so poisonous it might have curdled milk, and then patted Clear on the arm again.

"Don't worry about it, Clear," he said. "He was just making a stupid joke."

"Only kind worth making," said Mizuki cheerfully. "Speaking of Koujaku, where is he? You sure you guys didn't break up already?" His shot in the dark landed a direct head, judging from the way Aoba immediately went shifty-eyed. So Mizuki was right.

"He couldn't come today," Clear said, before Aoba could answer. "He's overseeing a project with the rest of Beni-Shigure. But what do you mean about ‘breaking up,’ Mizuki-san? Koujaku-san is in excellent health." 

Aoba put his hand over his face and sighed into his palm. Mizuki wished he could see Clear's expression; the guy _sounded_ like he had no idea what Mizuki was really asking after, but could anyone really be that oblivious? And what was with the weird formality?

Mizuki waved a hand. "Whatever," he said. "Good. I'm glad he's good. So what was this about your cooking, Clear?"

Aoba grinned, visibly relieved at the subject change. "Clear has been learning to cook from Granny," he said. "Well, really, Clear has been cooking with Granny. He's already a pretty good cook."

"I'm nowhere near as good as Tae-san," Clear said earnestly. "But she is showing me some of her best recipes! So today I made you dumplings, Mizuki-san, I hope they are acceptable!"

"They can't be any worse than Aoba's attempts at cooking," said Mizuki, and laughed when Aoba smacked him in the arm again. "Ow! Hey! Don't beat up on the guy in the hospital! Nurse!"

It turned out that not only were Clear's dumplings acceptable, they were fucking phenomenal. Mizuki thought he'd died and gone to heaven, there to eat the red bean buns of the angels themselves. As he munched, Mizuki listened to Aoba and Clear tell him how Tae Seragaki had taken it upon her grumpy, overworked self to look after the recovering members of Dry Juice while Mizuki was in the hospital. She had drafted Aoba and Clear into helping her cook for those who were bed-bound at home. From the sound of it, Aoba mostly helped with delivery, while Clear both cooked and delivered.

(Mizuki was glad for the excuse of having a dumpling in his mouth as he heard about this. After what he and his team had done to Tae, even despite being brainwashed... It was easy to see where Aoba had gotten his good heart, though.)

Koujaku was apparently also around and helping quite a bit, looking after the "project" that Clear had mentioned, although neither Clear nor Aoba would say just what this mystery project was. But at no point in their story-telling did Aoba explain who Clear was, or where he'd come from, or how Aoba had come to be friends with him.

He'd ask Aoba later, when Clueless wasn't around. The kid was charming, in a weird way. Mizuki spent so much of his time around thugs and street fighters and even Yakuza that baffling as Clear was, he was also a breath of fresh air.

After 90 minutes, Mizuki's nurse (whose name turned out to be Makoto) appeared in the doorway, eyeing Aoba and Clear meaningfully, and for a woman as small as she was, she managed to take up the whole entrance with the force of her implied threat. "We should get going," said Aoba, rising hastily. Mizuki grinned as Makoto disappeared again, her work accomplished.

"Thanks for coming," Mizuki said. "Don't forget to say thanks to Tae for her help, too. She's amazing."

"We'll tell her, Mizuki-san," said Clear. He got up too, bowing low from the waist, as though in the presence of royalty. "Please get better quickly, and come back soon! Koujaku-san keeps saying that if you don't get out of the hospital soon they're going to start charging you rent!" He sounded so anxious at this that Mizuki was startled into another laugh.

"I'm working on it, Clear," he said, and grinned broadly at him. "And Aoba, tell Koujaku to get off his ass and come see me himself next time, yeah?"

"Pretty sure he owes you an ass-kicking anyway," Aoba shot back, smirking as he shrugged into his jacket.

"Koujaku-san does not want—" Clear began, and Aoba stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, Clear. I'm just teasing Mizuki."

"Okay, Master," said Clear obediently, and turned to bow to Mizuki again. "Bye-bye, Mizuki-san!"

"Later, Mizuki," said Aoba, and with one last wave from the both of them, they left. Nurse Makoto reappeared in the room a few minutes later, just as Mizuki was starting to drift off again.

"I was wondering when that guy with the gas-mask would come see you again," she commented. She bent over him, checking the bandages on his neck that covered his healing skin-graft. "He's a strange one, isn't he? But nice. He's always so polite. I wonder why he wears that mask, though..."

"He's been here before?" Mizuki asked curiously. "Really?"

"Oh, sure," said Makoto. She turned and pointed at the pile of stuffed animals on the table by the wall—no, Mizuki realized. At the giant stuffed jellyfish on the floor. "He brought you those jellyfish. And he put that scarf on the jellyfish right around the time we did the skin-graft for your neck."

Mizuki stared. "Huh," was all he said.

"He must really be fond of you," Makoto continued. She was fiddling with some of the monitors by Mizuki's bedside, now, adjusting the medication that dripped into his arm via IV. "He came and sat with you for three hours once while you were asleep. Aoba came too, but he left before your gas-mask friend did. What did you say his name was?"

"Clear," said Mizuki. He was still staring at the jellyfish on the floor, a strange heat in his chest like someone had lit a candle inside his ribcage. "His name is Clear."

* * * * *

Mizuki didn't get a chance to ask Clear about either the stuffed jellyfish or the scarf, though, not for a long while. As news got out that he was doing better, his stream of visitors became more regular and varied, and most of his attention was given to the steady, often-painful business of becoming mobile again. He had very little time to wonder about strange people in gas-masks, or what the weird project was that kept Koujaku so busy but so reluctant to talk about it.

Clear was amongst his regular visitors, but so was Aoba, and so was Koujaku. Tae even came a few times, scolding Mizuki when he tried to get out of bed to bow and apologize to her properly. After she left for the first time, Mizuki reflected that it was just as well that they weren't at Aoba's house; Tae might be a few years older than the last time Mizuki was over, stealing a too-hot dumpling out of the bowl where it and its fellows were cooling, but Mizuki was willing to bet Tae would be just as quick to smack him upside the head with her mixing spoon.

Finally, the day came when Dr. Amano came into Mizuki's room and announced that he was fit to rejoin the rest of the world. A full four and a half months had passed since a pair of Yakuza had shown up on his doorstep with promises of relevancy and power and security, and winter was closing in quickly, but Mizuki's heart was still light as he came down the stairs to the front door of the hospital. (He'd been expecting the release for a week now, and had already sent home most of his presents and belongings from the hospital room, keeping just a change of clothes and a few small things to keep him occupied while he waited to be set free.)

It was early morning still, not yet 9:30. He'd sent Aoba a message from his Coil: _Jailbreak at last!_ Aoba had sent him back a text saying to expect an escort him, so once he was outside Mizuki looked around to find the familiar shock of blue hair, or maybe the red of Koujaku's kimono, but he saw neither of these things. Instead, the person waiting for him on the front steps was in a by-now familiar gas-mask and fading white labcoat.

Clear spotted him immediately, raising his hand and waving it excitedly. "Mizuki-sannnnn!"

"Oy! Hey, Clear." Mizuki grinned at him, coming slowly down the steps to hide the fact that just being up and moving around was still exhausting. The doctors had warned him that it might take a little while before his full energy levels resumed, but that being up and around would improve him faster than lying in bed waiting for his vitality to return. "Thanks for meeting me. Are Aoba and Koujaku with you?"

Clear shook his head. "No, Aoba-san and Koujaku-san are both waiting for us. They were finishing something, so they sent me to come get you."

"Sure," said Mizuki. He didn't drop his smile, but he couldn't quite suppress the throb of disappointment at finding out that two of his oldest friends couldn't turn up for his hospital release. "Well, let's get going."

If Clear had noticed Mizuki's dip in enthusiasm, he didn't say anything. In fact, he seemed to have something else altogether on his mind. "I will carry you!" Clear said decisively.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—" Mizuki took a few steps back, raising both hands palms-out to ward off Clear's outstretched arms. "That's really not necessary. I'm too heavy for you, anyway."

"No, Mizuki-san, it is fine! I am very strong." Clear reached for him again, and Mizuki surprised himself by ducking out of the way, neatly stepping around to Clear's side. "You are recovering, you shouldn't exert yourself!"

"Hey, hey! Just hold on a minute, okay?" Clear stopped, clasping both his hands in front of him as Mizuki all but busted out a cross to ward him off. "I just spent four months of my life in a bed, I'm really pretty happy to just walk."

"But Tae-san said to make sure I didn't let you overdo it..." Oh. Mizuki had to smile a little bit at the anxious whine creeping into Clear's voice, but he smoothed the expression hastily away so Clear wouldn't think Mizuki was laughing at him.

"Well, okay. How about... I'm gonna walk for awhile, and if I get tired, I'll tell you. And then you can carry me, yeah?"

Clear seemed to consider this. Finally, he straightened, bowing from the waist in that curiously formal way that he had, his arms at his side. "Alright, Mizuki-san! We will do this. Please let me know when you are tired, so that I can carry you!"

"Sure thing," said Mizuki cheerfully. He had exactly no intention of letting Clear carry him at all, but he also saw no reason to give Clear further anxiety. He'd grown on Mizuki over the course of their visits; he was always so excited to tell Mizuki what he and Aoba and their friends had been up to, what new recipe he'd learned how to make, what new book he'd read. He seemed like a good kid, sweet and eager to please.

If incredibly weird.

They walked slow, taking a circuitous route away from the end of town where the hospital was located and back towards the east side where Mizuki's friend Jun lived. Jun was one of Mizuki's oldest team-mates, and also one of the few who had been absent the day Mizuki had taken his team to go join Morphine, so he had been spared the mind-blanking poison. He'd offered to put Mizuki up until Mizuki's place was livable again.

Clear chattered happily at him as they walked. He ambled along at Mizuki's side, and Mizuki took care to walk slowly, so as not to wear himself out too quickly, and Clear seemed happy to go at his pace. (That was an art, as Mizuki would find out; it took him awhile past getting out of the hospital to regain his full strength and normal habits, and for weeks after his release, walking anywhere with others became a quiet exercise in frustration at the inevitable pattern of being left behind and then having to duly catch up to whomever he was walking with. But Clear seemed to modify his pace without even trying.)

Mizuki was so pleasantly distracted by being outside and having access to fresh air and natural sunlight that he did not at first realize that they were going the wrong way. It wasn't until they got to the flower shop on 6th and Yoji St. that he noticed they had made a wrong turn.

"Oh, Clear, we're headed the wrong way," he said, slowing to a halt.

"Ah, I should have mentioned, Mizuki-san," Clear said, glancing back over his shoulder at Mizuki. "There was one thing I forgot to bring for you at the hospital, so I thought we could stop by and get it before we go to Jun-san’s house."

"Uh, okay," said Mizuki, bemused. "Where are we going?"

"This way!" said Clear, and swung his arms as he set off again. Mizuki stared. There was no way Clear was that oblivious. He was definitely being led on, now. Wasn't he?

Three blocks later, he had his answer. "This is the way to my shop," he noted mildly. Clear glanced his way again but gave no other response, and Mizuki wished—not for the first time—that he could see Clear's face.

Mizuki slowed as they got closer, stopping at the mouth of the street that would take them down to where his shop once stood—presumably still stood, so far as he knew, but he was loathe to find out. "I'm just going to wait for you here," he said, when Clear stopped a few yards down the street and had turned around to look at him.

"Mizuki-san," Clear began, and then broke off, knitting his hands in front of him, rubbing nervously at the knuckles.

"I'd rather not see it," Mizuki said, and fixed a smile on his face that probably looked as painful as it felt. He realized now that it had been fucking stupid of him not to ask after what had happened to his shop while he was in the hospital. But no one had mentioned it to him, and maybe on some level he hadn't wanted to know. He'd been so tired and so focused on just getting better... what an idiot he was.

"Mizuki-san," Clear said again, softer. "There's a surprise for you. Aoba-san and Koujaku-san have it, and are waiting for you there."

Oh. Distantly, Mizuki noted that Clear was calling Aoba by his name now, as opposed to the 'Master' business he'd been throwing around before. But at the moment, he had other things to think about. "If this is a joke..."

But Clear shook his head. "It is not a joke, Mizuki-san," he said seriously. "I promise."

Inwardly, Mizuki sighed. He supposed he would have to see what had become of his shop sooner or later. Might as well do it in the presence of friends, he supposed. "Alright," he said, and set off down the street with Clear, trying to ignore the steadily-building knot in his stomach.

By the time they got to the front door, he already knew something was up. The last time he'd seen this place, it had been covered in dirt and blood, from the fight that had broken out between Dry Juice and Morphine when half the remaining members had realized something was wrong. What's more, the walls had been stained with Morphine's tag art, covering all the Dry Juice tags that had been there previously.

Now, though, the front of Mizuki's shop looked... "Has it had a paint job?" Mizuki demanded incredulously. Forgetting his own trepidation, he hurried forward, staring dumbfounded at the brightly-polished glass windows, at the fresh new coat of paint on the door and the walls. The Morphine tag art was gone as if it had never been. "Oh my god."

"Mizuki!" Koujaku opened the door as Mizuki stood there, staring and dumbfounded. At the sight of him, Koujaku broke into a huge grin. "I was wondering when you would get here! Come inside, Aoba's almost done."

"Done with what?" Before he'd even finished asking the question, Mizuki had his answer. He could smell something fragrant and delicious wafting out to him from inside the shop. "Holy shit, are you baking? You're in my tattoo shop, baking. What the hell, Koujaku!"

"Would you get him in here already?" Aoba's voice filtered out to where Mizuki was standing, and Koujaku laughed and reached out, grabbing Mizuki's arm and yanking him inside.

The inside was, if anything, even more stunning that the outside. Mizuki stared around the interior of his home, utterly flabbergasted at the transformation.

The last time he was here, everything had been destroyed: furniture broken, holes in the wall from thrown objects, more blood staining the surfaces, and violent tag art on every wall. Now, it was spotless: whatever dings and dents might still be there were invisible, as far as Mizuki could tell. New plaster had been put over the holes in the walls, and covered with fresh wallpaper and paint. New furniture filled the space, and the wooden floor was flawless, freshly cut and oiled wood under his feet that Mizuki thought he might still be able to smell the finish on the wood if he got down and sniffed it close-up.

Mizuki's shop consisted of a tattoo parlor and bar combined that made up the first floor; admittedly, excessive alcohol and tattoos didn't make for a good combination, but Mizuki was careful about guiding his clients when it came to their tattoos, and he was proud to be able to say that he'd never once had a customer complain about a tattoo, or express any regret at getting it. He himself lived on the second floor in a converted apartment. He owned the entire space, and knowing that his home and place of work had both been destroyed by Morphine's brainwashed gang had been one of the things he'd been desperately trying not to think about while recovering in the hospital.

Now, though, it looked better than it had in possibly years. Mizuki stood there in the middle of the lounge that made up the main part of the first floor, staring around himself in shock.

"Is it alright?" asked Koujaku, after almost forty-five seconds had passed and Mizuki still had not said anything. He sounded more tentative than Mizuki had heard him be in a long while, and that more than anything shook him out of his daze.

"It's incredible," Mizuki said, turning around. Clear had slipped in next to Koujaku, and Mizuki still couldn't see his face, but the clasped hands and attentive posture gave his attitude clearly. "It's fixed. You fixed it? You and Aoba? It looks like new. This is..."

Koujaku relaxed at that, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. "It was a big group project, actually," he said. "A lot of your Rib teammates helped, and so did Beni-Shigure. Aoba and Clear spent a lot of their free time here, too."

"You guys are _incredible_ ," Mizuki said again. His voice had gone suspiciously hoarse. "Where the hell is Aoba?"

"I'm coming!" said Aoba's voice, and a familiar shock of blue hair appeared at the top of the stairs, poking out of the door to Mizuki's actual home. "Sorry to invade your house, Mizuki. I meant to have these done sooner..." He edged out the door, nudging it closed with his shoulder, and Mizuki saw that he had his hands full. He came down the stairs, carefully, and as he got closer Mizuki saw the metal thing in his hands was a muffin tin, and the fragrant scent of blueberry-walnut muffins was what he'd been smelling since before he'd even set foot inside.

"You..!" Mizuki waited just long enough for Aoba to set the muffin tin down on the counter before he tackled him, hugging him fiercely, recovery be damned. Aoba yelped and protested something about _don't be so embarrassing_ , but he hugged Mizuki back anyway, his grip just as tight.

"I can't believe it," Mizuki said at length. He pulled back, releasing Aoba and looking back at Clear and Koujaku, his heart as full as he could remember it being in far too long. "It's too much. You guys didn't have to do this."

"But we wanted to," said Clear earnestly. Koujaku reached over and patted Clear's silver hair affectionately, the way you would an excited puppy. "It was Aoba-san's idea."

"Shut up, Clear," said Aoba mildly. "Mizuki's gonna start thinking I care about him, or something crazy like that."

Mizuki snorted. "Can't have that," he said, and then went to manfully hug Koujaku, and then Clear. He knew, or thought he knew, what this was really about; the fact that this fixer-upper had been Aoba's idea made that obvious. But he wasn't going to force the subject, or at least not right now. "Alright, alright, let me look around, you put all this work into fixing it up, I have to see what you did!"

The upstairs looked as wonderful as the downstairs did. Everything that had been broken had been fixed or replaced, from the furniture to the walls to the dishes in the cupboards. There were some art prints that had been destroyed in the assault that were going to be difficult to impossible to replace, but considering how much work Mizuki would have been facing alone, he was finding it hard to be that upset about it.

(Privately, Mizuki wondered if he should have been embarrassed at having anyone see the actual state of his bachelor pad without pre-emptively cleaning it up, but he figured that by the time anyone got here the place had been so thoroughly trashed by Morphine that it was impossible to tell how gross it had been by Mizuki's sheer laziness, so perhaps he'd gotten a get-out-of-jail free card there.)

"I didn't know you were such a tidy housekeeper, Aoba," Mizuki was saying, staring in some strange mixture of embarrassment and pleasure at the meticulous way his bed had been made. Aoba coughed, and Mizuki shot him a look.

"That's actually Clear you should be complimenting, not me," said Aoba with a lopsided smile. "He, uh."

"He makes the rest of us look like slobs, is what Aoba is trying to say," Koujaku cut in, and even as he rolled his eyes, Aoba couldn't hide his smile.

"I did not do anything special!" Clear flapped his hands in protest before giving up and shoving them in the pockets of his lab-coat. "Koujaku-san and Aoba-san worked much harder to find all the right parts to fix your house, Mizuki-san!" For what seemed like the dozenth time Mizuki wished he could see what lay behind that mask. He wanted to know if the person bashfully trying to avoid attention was as cute as his voice made him sound.

(He _also_ wanted to know why a gas-mask was necessary in the first place, but who was he to judge a stranger's behavior? He'd once tattooed a guy who told MIzuki earnestly that he could only leave the house on days when his cat said he could, which apparently averaged out to once a week—and that wasn't even the weirdest person Mizuki had ever worked with, either. So really, Clear still came out ahead.)

“Enough with that kind of talk,” Mizuki said. “It’s special, ‘cause I say it is, and since it’s my home mine’s the opinion that counts.” He spread his hands, trying to focus on simply being grateful. “Now let’s have some of those muffins, Aoba. I need to know if they taste as good as they smell…”

His friends had gone far above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that he felt welcome and wanted after getting out of the hospital. After all their hard work, the last thing they needed to be made aware of was how little there really was keeping Mizuki from turning his back on the ruins that he’d made of his life and walking away, never to return.

He’d think about it later. Mizuki fixed a smile firmly on his face, put a hand on Clear’s shoulder, and herded them back into the kitchen. And if Aoba or Clear or Koujaku noticed his smile slipping at the edges, or a paleness to his face, no doubt they just assumed it was due to his recent hospital stay, and thought nothing more of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** No, "Ruizaki" isn't Mizuki's canon surname; he doesn't have one, so I gave him one, because I found it distracting that he didn't have one--it felt a bit like pretending he was also never a small child, or something.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mizuki struggles with where to go with his life now that he's out of the hospital, and spends some time getting to know Clear. Or: the calm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with beautiful illustrations! The art for this chapter was done by joannaestep. Her tumblr post for it can be found [here](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/post/79228884988/shit-who-spiked-the-hot-cocoa-chapter-2-of), and you can see it at the end of this chapter!

It was over two hours later before his house-guests finally left. Mizuki shut the door on Aoba’s back, and then dragged himself back inside, collapsing face-first onto his bed with a groan. 

“Fuck,” he said aloud—or into the bedclothes, actually, his voice muffled by the bedcover. It smelled like lavender, and… something else, he thought vaguely. Something floral and bright. He wondered if Clear had chosen the soap he’d washed these sheets with. It sure smelled better than anything Mizuki used on his own stuff. 

He needed to send a message to Jun, although now that Mizuki was thinking about it, his friend had probably been in on the surprise, so maybe there was no real need to check in with him. Still… Mizuki turned his face to one side, letting out a harsh sigh. 

The truth was, right at this exact moment, he didn’t want to do fucking _anything_. There was a million things he needed to start on if he wanted to begin the process of putting his life back together to look something like the way it had used to: organize a team meeting with his current remaining Rib mates; check on the supplies for his bar and his tattoo parlor, to make sure he was stocked for business; check in that his liquor and tattooing licenses hadn’t expired while he was in the hospital; fuck, just go grocery shopping… 

He didn’t want to do any of it. He lay there in the middle of his nice neat bed, in the room that was his again but didn’t really feel like it yet, and permitted himself a moment of deep, curling resentment: At Clear, at Koujaku, at Aoba, but most of all at himself. 

It wasn’t the shattering of his mind that he resented Aoba for; he’d forgiven his friend for that already, although they hadn’t really talked about it as much as they maybe should. But his well-meaning and worried friends had put his home and work-place back together so beautifully for him, and looked after his Rib-mates for him, and in short acted exactly as good friends should… and Mizuki resented them deeply for it, because now he had no choice but to pick up where his life had left off. 

It wasn’t even that he wasn’t sure he deserved this second chance—he’d always tried hard to do the best for his team, to be a good friend and a good leader. Even the horror-show with Morphine had come about out of good intentions taken advantage of, no matter how badly it ended up. Yeah, okay, there was some blame to be laid at his feet there too, and he’d done plenty of being himself up about it, but really… Mizuki was just so. Fucking. Tired.

He shut his eyes, curling up on his side, still in the clothes he wore home from the hospital. With an effort, he snaked his foot down to the end of the bed and managed to catch the green blanket that lay there in a neatly folded pile. He reached down, grunting as he hauled the blanket up over himself, and then collapsed back into his previous position with a groan, the blanket pulled haphazardly over him. Within three minutes, he was fast asleep.

He did not dream. 

When Mizuki woke, a good two or three hours later, the sun was halfway down the sky, mid-afternoon shadows growing long. Sunlight filtered in through his newly-repaired window, making an outline of six slightly oblong squares on his floor. Mizuki opened his eyes, blinking slowly. There was a strange, lingering dullness in his mind, like…. Like—

Mizuki squinted, rolling onto his back. He swallowed a few times, licking his lips instinctively. Like hospital food, he thought irrationally. Nutritionally sufficient, but totally lacking in any interest or flavor. That was the kind of sleep he’d had. 

His sleep had been like that in the hospital, too, but in the hospital you expect that sort of thing. Mizuki had hoped that sleeping in a real bed in his own home might have ameliorated the situation. Well… too soon to judge. He’d only been home a few hours, after all, and a nap wasn’t the same as a full night’s sleep.

He sat up, swinging his legs slowly over the side of the bed, letting his consciousness filter fully back to him. It was chilly in the room; Clear or Aoba had left the window open somewhere, probably. He could hear faint sounds from the street outside: casual conversation, a woman’s high heels, a dog barking. Mizuki rubbed the side of his face, and on an impulse he couldn’t quite identify, he got up and walked over to his closet, pulling the double doors open.

This was one of the few areas that had been spared, during the devastating Morphine attack. Left to his own devices, Mizuki would have assumed that all his things would be dusty or full of moth-holes, but it somehow wasn’t a surprise when he pulled out a shirt he hadn’t seen in five months and discovered that it smelled fresh as a daisy.

Like his bedclothes. Which probably meant Clear had washed them. This was getting a little ridiculous, Mizuki thought with a faint frown. It was one thing for Aoba and Koujaku and the members of Beni-Shigure to volunteer their time and energy for him, but Clear was virtually a stranger. Mizuki didn’t like accepting charity even from his closest friends, save for the most dire of situations—like this one had been—and yet here was this sweet, daft boy, washing his clothes and cleaning his house and cooking for his team-mates. It was preposterous.

Either Clear was playing some angle (which Mizuki found entirely unlikely), or he was really, really lonely. …And sweet. 

Later. He’d think about it later. Mizuki reached into his closet, picking through his hung-up shirts until he found the one he was looking for, an olive green poplin button-down with a faint reflective sheen to it. It was one of his semi-formal pieces of clothing, and as such he’d hardly had occasion to wear it since he got it, just a handful of times. Over the shirt went a grey vest, with a matching tie, and charcoal slacks with his most modest pair of boots. Finally he dug out a different leather jacket than his usual metal-studded one, and headed for the door.

It was a little unnecessary to get quite so dressed up, he knew. But for good or for ill, no matter what he decided, today was his new start. And he wanted to get it right.

* * * * *

When he left his apartment, Mizuki headed east. He kept to the main road, which eventually petered out to become a minor street. The street veered right, away from the city, heading towards the coast. His destination was about a thirty-minute walk, which was fine by him. He wanted the time to think.

He hadn’t gone to Hiraoka Shrine in several months. The last time he’d gone had been the Obon festival, in August, with what had seemed like half of Dry Juice in tow. But the visits he was thinking of right now weren’t with Dry Juice; he was thinking of how he’d come here as a little boy, walking between his parents’ clasped hands, excited to get to visit the shrine like an adult would. His parents had picked him up and swung him between them, laughing at his excited squeaks every time his feet left the ground.

Despite what some of his Rib-mates might have guessed, Mizuki had had a pretty good childhood. His parents were good people, and Mizuki had been their only and much-loved child. The trouble hadn’t started until Mizuki was approaching his early teens; at 12, Mizuki had encountered and fallen in love with Ribsteez. By 13, he was a junior team member of another gang, Black Lotus; by 14, he’d gotten his first team tattoo. He’d long since inked over it with another design, of course, but that had been the start.

His parents hadn’t loved it, but they tolerated his enthusiasm because it seemed to make their son so happy. Their big fight turned out to be about something else entirely: a few months shy of Mizuki’s 15th birthday, his parents had become one of the thousands of residents persuaded by Toue’s blood-money to leave their home and move to the mainland. But Mizuki had refused to go. He’d run away from home the week before his parents’ boat departed, swearing up and down that he would never leave Midorijima. Not for any reason.

Mizuki smiled to himself at the memory, a little sadly. That was almost 13 years ago. And despite having worked his ass off to build a successful life for himself here—his tattoo shop, his bar, his Rib team family—it had all come crashing down around his ears. And now here he was, trying to decide if it was worth the pain to try to pick up the pieces and move forward… or if the time had come for him, too, to move on to the mainland. 

Ahead of him, the shrine rose up around a bend in the road. The torii straddled the entrance to the shrine, its black-and-orange painted arms standing guard over the wooden slats of the walkway that led up to and beneath it. Mizuki let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, the peacefulness of the setting instantly easing some of the tension in his shoulders. 

He approached the gate slowly, keeping to the right, listening to the quiet sound of a bird in one of the trees nearby. It chirped once, twice, and then broke into full-throated song, and Mizuki smiled to hear it sound so determined. It sang for perhaps forty seconds, and then Mizuki heard the moment its wings burst into explosive flight as it took off. He slowed as he came abreast of the pair of komainu flanking the gate. The closest statue had its mouth open, its paw raised and resting on a skull; its ferocious face turned inwards, greeting the visitor with a mouth full of stone teeth. Mizuki turned his head, glancing at the other statue, close-mouthed but equally fierce, and felt a trickle of premonition go down his back. 

Beginning and ending, open and shut. No matter what he decided today, the door on the life he’d led up till now had been closed. It was just a question of what lay beyond the door that led into the next part of his life. Mizuki took a deep breath, then straightened up and let all the air out of his lungs, and went forward, heading up the steps to the purification fountain.

He cleaned his hands and then his mouth, shivering at the chill; the water was far from frozen, but Mizuki wouldn’t have wanted to swim in it. Then he headed into the shrine, feeling curiously empty—like a vessel waiting to be filled. 

Mizuki walked through the front doors into the offering hall, glancing around; he appeared to be the only one here today. He walked up to the little wooden box for offerings, and dropped a few coins in. Then he stepped up to the wooden table and reached up, grabbing the dangling braided rope and rang the bell loudly. He bowed deeply, and in the middle of his second bow he thought irrationally of Clear, bowing to him in his hospital bed like Mizuki was a visiting dignitary instead of some punk laid up in bed for being an idiot.

Mizuki thought about the men and women who had counted on him, that he’d let down—and the ones who had forgiven him anyway, and had waited for him with open arms. He thought about the look on Aoba’s face when he looked at Koujaku now, the same warmth reflected back in Koujaku’s eyes, and even though Mizuki had once wanted so badly for Aoba to look at _him_ that way, now he found that all he had was gladness for them.

He thought about his team-mates who had left Dry Juice for more interesting turf, like Rhyme, or even a move to the mainland, and how every single lost member felt like a personal blow. He thought about all the people who had gone missing, kidnapped by Toue for his disgusting experiments, discarded like trash when his drugs and treatments broke them. He thought about how much of Midorijima needed to be fixed, and how monumental a task that was—a lifetime of work, eight lifetimes. More.

Mizuki thought of buying himself a ticket, getting on the next boat to the mainland and not looking back, and instead of the sense relief he felt only sadness. It would be a simple solution to his problems, he knew, but it would not solve anything for anyone save himself. And he’d never been the kind to take the easy way out. No matter how much he wanted to.

He clapped his hands twice and bowed once more, and then as he rose, lifting his eyes to the printed screen in front of him, he felt something lift off his shoulders.

“Please help me to make the right decision,” he said, his voice a whisper; it took him a moment to realize he’d spoken aloud. “Please help me find the strength to go the way that is true.”

He let out a breath, letting his hands fall to his sides. Around him, nothing stirred; the wind whispered through the tree-branches, and the faint sounds of birdsong reached his ears again. He felt so _light_. Not that he knew what he was going to do, but somehow acknowledging that what was done was done and all his routes would be hard put his restlessness at ease, a little. 

Mizuki lingered a little longer at the shrine, walking slowly around the grounds and listening to the sounds of birdsong and the trickle of water from the purification fountain. He loved the city, and would probably never want to move out of it, but… he’d forgotten how calming it was to come somewhere more secluded to be alone with his thoughts.

He spared a few minutes to buy two small charms from the self-service stand set up by the exit. He bought one for good luck, as well as one for fortune in relationships; he figured he could use all the extra help he could get. Then he headed home.

* * * * *

Later—much, much later, when he could run five miles again without passing out and time had given him some perspective—Mizuki could think back to the period immediately after getting out of the hospital, and see the trip to the shrine for what it was: not the turning point it had felt like during his visit, but as just one of the demarcation points in the landscape of his life.

Because despite the clarity and peace Mizuki found while visiting Hiraoka Shrine, he brought home nothing from it that definitively made up his mind. His decision turned out to be made not on top of a mountain peak from which he could see far ahead, and not by some divine moment of revelation, but by a sea of tiny pebbles: relatively insignificant in and of themselves, but mighty as a unified whole.

The first pebble came about a week and a half after his release from the hospital. The plan Mizuki had settled on was simple; he’d resume his life as if all things were normal, tattooing and bartending and doing Rib, just for the time being. When he had his feet under him and felt that his Rib team was once more as settled as it was going to get, he would decide whether to leave his team in the hands of one of his more capable team-mates and depart for the mainland, or to stay. 

Mizuki had just opened his shop’s doors for the day. He sat at his bar counter, pouring over his accounts book for the nillionth time. The bell on the door rang, and he looked up, expecting to see Keigo Saitori, his first appointment of the day, but instead the person poking their head in his door was wearing a gas-mask and an uncertain air. 

“Hi, Mizuki-san,” said Clear. He hovered in the doorway, as though uncertain of his welcome. “May I come in?”

Mizuki blinked. “Of course,” he said, standing up from his seat behind the counter and shutting his accounts book. “Come on in. You want a drink?” The question was automatic, from long years of running both tattoo shop and bar; belatedly, Mizuki registered that it was barely 9 am.

“I would love a drink,” Clear said, and although he had no facial expression to go on, Mizuki thought Clear sounded more relaxed. Clear came in, shutting the door carefully behind him. 

“You can take off your coat, you know,” Mizuki said. “Don’t have to be so formal in here. And uh, you don’t need the gas-mask in here, I promise. It’s clean.”

“Ahh, thank you! But I am fine, I promise.” Clear bowed deeply, from the waist, and Mizuki just shook his head in bemusement. 

“No worries. What do you want to drink?”

Clear approached the bar, hopping up onto a stool and then folding his hands on the countertop. Mizuki leaned against the counter from the other side, suppressing a grin as he watched Clear look over Mizuki’s bottles of liquor and wine and sake. He straightened up after a moment, clasping his hands in his lap. “I would like hot chocolate, please!” he announced.

Mizuki’s jaw dropped. “You want _what?_ ”

“Hot chocolate,” said Clear. “Is that alright, Mizuki-san?” The note of anxiety had crept back into his voice. Mizuki back-pedaled hastily.

“Of course, of course! It’s totally fine. No worries at all. … You want me to spike it with something for you, though?” Mizuki reached towards his rack of liquor, but halted with his hand midway there at the shocked gasp the question got him.

“Spikes? Uh, Mizuki-san… d-did I say something to upset you?” Clear sounded downright scared now. “You don’t have to make me hot chocolate if you don’t want to. I can just—go…” Mizuki turned around, and not for the first time he wished that he could actually see Clear’s face so he could tell if he was being made fun of or not.

Clear sounded awfully serious, though. “It’s not a real spike,” Mizuki said, trying to keep his voice sounding normal. “It’s just an expression. When you spike someone’s drink, it means you put alcohol in it.”

“Oh!!” Clear put both his hands to where his mouth would be, if he weren’t wearing the gas-mask. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary. Thank you, Mizuki-san. Just regular hot chocolate, please.” 

“No worries,” said Mizuki. God, Clear was so cute. He probably had a face for radio under that mask—why else would he wear it so constantly?—but Mizuki couldn’t help but grin as he got down a mug and some chocolate sauce from one of his cupboards. “I’m some kinda lush over here, trying to get you to have liquor before 10 am. Serves me right.”

“Lush?” Again Clear cocked his head, and Mizuki found himself launching on another explanation for a term that nearly everyone he knew should have learned a good 10 years prior, accompanied by the growing suspicion that if Clear kept coming around, he’d be doing it a lot. He was starting to wonder if Clear was some kind of recluse, or if he’d simply grown up under a rock. 

Maybe it didn’t matter, though. Regardless, Clear was a refreshing change from the sorts of people Mizuki usually hung around with. It made Mizuki want to coax him out of his shell (and maybe his clothes, he thought to himself, a little guiltily). 

He poured the milk into the mug and stuck it in his microwave, and as he did so, something occurred to him. “Hey, Clear,” he began—but when he looked over, he saw Clear had gotten up from his bar-stool and walked over to the wall, and was standing in front of one of the prints hung there. “Oh, you like my prints?”

“They’re so beautiful!” Clear said. He sounded so earnest that Mizuki couldn’t help but smile. “I saw them before, when we were cleaning, but Aoba-san could not tell me much about them.” He turned around, cocking his head (his gas-mask) at Mizuki. “Where did you get them?”

Mizuki’s smile widened to a grin. “I did that one,” he said. “I designed it for one of my Rib-mates, Michio.”

“Ahhhhhhh!!” Clear let out a gasp of delight, clapping his hands together. “You did it? It’s so beautiful!” 

“Yeah? You like it?” The microwave beeped. Mizuki grabbed the chocolate sauce and poured it into the now-steaming milk, and then stirred it, wishing faintly that he had whipped cream to put on here for Clear. “I could do a tattoo for you, if you wanted. Hey, your hot chocolate’s ready.”

“Oh, thank you!” Clear came back over to the bar, hopping up on his stool and reaching for the mug. “You could tattoo me? Really? That would be very exciting.” 

“Of course. I’d even do it for free. You and Aoba and Koujaku did so much for me.” Nevermind the fact that Mizuki had been offering to tattoo Aoba for years and Aoba had always turned him down. Better not to dwell too much. 

“You’re so kind! We only did what was right.” Clear cradled his mug of hot chocolate in both hands, holding it right in front of the spigot at the end of his gas mask; vaguely, Mizuki wondered how he thought he was going to get around taking his mask off to drink. “Aoba-san told me all about how you always look out for your Rib mates and for your other friends. So I was happy to help such a generous person.”

Mizuki made a rude noise, grinning and waving his hand dismissively. “Come on, already,” he said. “I was a total stranger to you, and you went out of your way to be kind to me. So if you think of a tattoo you’d like to get, just come by, and we’ll get you set up.”

“Ah, but I already know what I would get!” Clear sat up straighter; abruptly, Mizuki realized that half of his hot chocolate was gone, though he hadn’t seen Clear’s mask move at all. What the— “I would get a jellyfish tattoo!”

“Jellyfish?” Mizuki repeated, attention effectively diverted. “I don’t think I’ve ever done a jellyfish tattoo. That’d be a fun one to design…” His mind was already off and running, picturing the different ways he could approach the design. He loved doing organic tattoos, loved the art of shaping them to fit and flow over the canvas of a human body, accenting the person it belonged to. Something occurred to Mizuki in the middle of his train of thought, and he snapped his fingers. “Hey! Weren’t you the one who brought me all those jellyfish in the hospital? 

“Oh! Yes, that was me!” Clear set his now-empty mug down on the counter so that he could press his palms together in front of him, sounding pleased. “Did you like them? I think jellyfish are so beautiful. I hoped they would make you happy while you were sick.”

He sounded so _earnest_. Mizuki couldn’t help but smile. Was this kid for real? “Yeah,” he said, shooting Clear a wide grin. “I liked ‘em a lot. They were really cute.”

“Good! I am glad.” Clear’s shoulders sagged. “And I would love a tattoo like that. But, I am not sure that a tattoo would work very well on me…” He went from sounding enthusiastic to dejected in moments, and Mizuki suffered and urge to reach out to take his hand.

“Hey, come on, that’s not true,” he said. “I bet a tattoo would look great on you.” _I bet my hands would look great on you,_ said a totally unhelpful voice in the back of his head, and Mizuki’s smile went from genuine to a little strained. He hoped Clear wouldn’t notice. 

“That is not quite what I meant,” said Clear, shyness creeping into his voice. “My… skin is a little unusual.”

“Oh,” said Mizuki, bemused. If Clear had some kind of skin condition, that would explain why he covered so much of his body up like that. Maybe it was on his face, too. Poor thing… “Well, hey, that doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. I’ve heard there are some special hypoallergenic dyes that work well for people with sensitive skin. If you really want a tattoo, I bet we could find a way to work with you.”

“That would be wonderful,” said Clear, clasping his hands in his lap. “Thank you, Mizuki-san.” 

“It’s no problem at all,” said Mizuki. “Seriously.”

“How does a tattoo normally go?” asked Clear. 

“Well…”

An hour came and went. Mizuki let himself be drawn into a strange and rambling conversation, telling Clear how he met Aoba, how he got into Rib, how he got interested in tattoos in the first place. Clear was bursting with questions, and he was an endearingly attentive listener, despite the fact that Mizuki couldn’t actually see his face. Before Mizuki knew it, the clock above the door showed five minutes till 10, and the front door was jingling open. Keigo Saitori poked his head inside, his face breaking into a smile when he spotted Mizuki. “Oy, Mizuki!” 

“Ah, your appointment is here!” Clear hopped down from his chair, straightening his scarf and coat, and then bowed low, bending from the waist. “I will leave you be. Thank you, Mizuki-san!” And with that, he was gone, slipping out the door before Mizuki could even register that he was leaving.

Keigo stared after him, then glanced bemusedly at Mizuki. “Who was that?” he asked. “I didn’t know you took appointments before 10 am.” 

“Oh, I don’t,” said Mizuki. “He wasn’t here to get tattooed.”

Keigo’s eyebrow went up. “Yeah? He a friend of yours, then?”

Mizuki picked up Clear’s long-empty mug, frowning faintly. “Well, uh…” He trailed off. Now that he thought of it, he’d never even asked why Clear had stopped by. And Clear had never said, either. 

“He’s a friend, yeah,” Mizuki said finally. “Just stopped by to say hi.”

* * * * *

A week passed, then two, then three. By the time Mizuki had been out of the hospital for a month, Clear had become as regular a visitor at his shop as Aoba and Koujaku. He was as friendly and amiable to anyone who spoke to him as he’d been to Mizuki, but to the best of Mizuki’s knowledge, there was still exactly no one who knew what he looked like under that gas mask. Whenever he asked Aoba or Koujaku about it, the most he would get was a shrug in return.

Mizuki wondered, idly, whether it was some kind of failing on their part. It wasn’t as though no one had asked, but Clear either dodged the question or responded simply that he was more comfortable with the mask on, and there the subject stayed. 

As for himself, Mizuki had his hands full re-establishing his business and trying to get back into something resembling good shape; a few days a week he kept shorter hours at his shop in favor of doing the hated-but-recommended set of exercises given to him by his physical therapist at the hospital. Those days were always the most exhausting, and though he slept well and deeply, his nights were still dreamless—a mystery he saw no reason to dwell on. He didn’t really have time to worry about silver-haired strangers who preferred to keep their faces hid. But he did find himself looking up with anticipation every time the front bell rang.

It was only natural, he told himself. Clear was just so nice to have as a visitor, with his unrelenting good cheer and sunny disposition. After the months of hell and darkness Mizuki had dragged through, could anyone blame him for looking forward to a little sunshine?

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought he deserved a little sunshine, though not quite of the nature he would have wanted. 

Clear was over—sitting at his now-usual spot on Mizuki’s bar, swinging his legs absently and singing to himself, a wordless, pretty little song. Mizuki listened while he worked, going over his books, taking the liquor stock so he knew what to order more of; he’d never admit it out loud, but having Clear sitting at the corner singing like he was did wonders for his mood. 

The door swung open, and Mizuki glanced up to see a girl in knee-high combat boots and a dark green minidress enter—one of his younger members, a girl named Yukie. Yukie’s father had kicked her out of the house when she’d finally worked up the nerve to tell him that she liked girls, and was now living with her best friend’s family. Short and mouthy, with hair dyed bright red that she liked to wear in big artful updos like bursts of flame erupting from her head, Mizuki had been pleasantly surprised by how quickly she’d taken to the game—and how good she was at it. 

“Mizuki!” she cried, beaming at him as she bounced over to the bar and crawled up onto the seat. Clear broke off his singing and looked over at her, and Mizuki grinned at her enthusiasm.

“What’s up, Yukie?” he asked. She set a box on the counter wrapped in canvas and beamed. “Ha, what’s in the box?”

“It’s a present,” Yukie said cheerfully. She glanced past Mizuki to where Clear was sitting, and cocked her head curiously. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Clear,” said Mizuki. “Clear, this is Yukie, one of my Rib members.”

Clear gave a little wave. “It’s very nice to meet you!” he said, and slipped off the barstool to direct a deep bow Yukie’s way. 

Yukie cocked an eyebrow at Mizuki and grinned. “You don’t gotta be so formal, Clear,” she said easily. “Hey, what’s with the gas-mask? Are you sick? I can get you some medicine really cheap if you need it.” 

Mizuki suppressed a smile. Some of Yukie’s more endearing traits were her bluntness, paired with her willingness to extend an offer of help to virtual strangers. Two of the many reasons he’d asked her to join Dry Juice. 

Clear shook his head, sitting back down on the bar-stool. “No, I am fine,” he said politely, and Mizuki recited his response inside his head even as Clear spoke the words out loud. “I am just more comfortable in this mask, so please forgive my rudeness for wearing it inside.”

“Oh,” said Yukie, nonplussed. She shrugged. “Okay, cool. Hey, Mizuki, open your present!”

Damn. He should have known. “Come on, I know you can’t afford to buy me presents,” he said. He put a marker in his accounts book and came over to the counter, dubiously examining the box. 

“I found it, though,” said Yukie. “It was really easy to fix up, and I thought of you right away. Go on, open it!” Like many people in the Old Resident District,Yukie scraped together enough money to get by through a variety of odd jobs; one of them was finding scrap metal and bringing it to the smelting shops to be melted into new and useful objects. Whenever she found something fixable or re-sellable, she’d pawn it or repair it to be sold individually. 

“I shudder to think what made you think of me immediately,” said Mizuki with a grin. “It better not be a plastic dick, Yukie.”

“Hey, you know I’m better than that,” she said seriously. “I know you’ve been needing a new one, but I would never bring you _anything_ less quality than a metal dick.”

“That’s my girl,” said Mizuki with a laugh. More than likely Clear was baffled, but some dumb jokes just weren’t worth explaining. He ripped open the canvas packaging to reveal a sturdy cardboard box, inside of which was what looked like a little red Spitz dog. It looked not unlike Ren, which was how Mizuki identified immediately what it was: an All-mate. “Ahhhh…”

“It’s never been used, as far as I can tell,” said Yukie eagerly. Clear got up from his stool and came over to Yukie, peering over her shoulder at the contents of the box. Mizuki fixed a smile on his face, thinking fast as Yukie continued talking. “I know you don’t like electronics much, but an All-mate would be so useful for you with all the shit you have to keep track of.” 

“Is that an All-mate?” Clear asked, and Yukie grinned and nodded at him. “Ahhh, Yukie-san! What a wonderful gift!”

“Yeah, it’s a great present,” said Mizuki. “You’re too generous. But people have already done so much for me, and I can think of at least four of our team-mates who could use this just as much as a luddite like me. Or more.”

“But—” Yukie began, her mouth turning downwards. 

“Isn’t Kimiko still stuck in bed with a broken leg and hip?” Mizuki said reasonably. “I bet she’d love an All-mate to talk to and play with.” Yukie shut her mouth mid-protest, looking sheepish. Kimiko was the girl who had first introduced Yukie to Dry Juice, and she was currently recovering from a motorbike accident. “I had _tons_ of people come to visit me in the hospital, but I was still bored out of my mind half the time. She’ll get a lot more use out of this little guy than I will. You know I suck at these things anyway.”

“You’re the worst,” Yukie said, disgruntled. 

Mizuki reached over and patted her hand. “I know,” he said. “But a good leader puts his team first. You’re awesome for thinking of me, though. Thanks, Yukie.” Meanwhile, Clear had reached into the box and picked up the red dog, and was examining it gingerly. Mizuki noted with amusement that Clear was being careful to support the dog’s legs, the way you would hold a live animal, to make sure you didn’t accidentally injure it.

“I guess I’ll swing by Kimiko’s on the way home, then,” Yukie said with a sigh. Mizuki did feel a little bad for re-directing her good intentions like this, but he knew it would be better this way. 

Yukie stayed only a little longer, updating Mizuki on some local gossip as well as a few rumors about the latest doings of some of their local Yakuza, and then she left again, taking the box with the All-mate in it with her and warning Mizuki that next time she really would bring him a plastic dick. Mizuki laughed and told her to make sure it was pink, waving as she pulled the door shut behind her.

“That was very generous of you, Mizuki-san,” said Clear. “I can see why your team is so big. You’re so kind.” Mizuki let out a long sigh at that, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Uh… Are you alright, Mizuki-san?” Clear asked. Mizuki looked at him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I just…” He shook his head. “Every once in awhile, one of my newer Rib members will try to give me something like that—an All-mate, or a fancy Coil, or something. I just hate all that crap.”

“You hate All-mates?” Clear said, sounding puzzled. “But why?”

“Not All-mates in particular,” said Mizuki with a shrug. “Just—they aren’t even real pets, or real people. Just another fake-out. Like… okay, you know Rhyme, right? The game?” Clear nodded. “Well, the past year or so, lots of people have been leaving Rib to play Rhyme instead. And I just don’t get why. It’s not even real. It’s just make-believe virtual reality crap. I even heard that their moderator—Usue, or something?—was one of Toue’s creations.” 

“Oh…” Clear nodded, and folded his hands in his lap. He sounded almost forlorn, and irrationally Mizuki found himself feeling bad.

“I don’t mind if other people have All-mates or whatever,” Mizuki said, and leaned his elbows on the counter. “It’s just my own preference, you know?”

“Of course!” Clear straightened quickly. “You should do what makes you happy. Anyone can see you are a good person, so it’s okay.” 

Mizuki smiled. “Well, I try,” he said. “Hey, how about some hot chocolate? I could use some more company while I finish the rest of the books today. I even have whipped cream this time.”

“That sounds good, Mizuki-san,” said Clear; Mizuki thought he sounded a little perkier. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Mizuki. And even though it wasn’t like he’d really needed to apologize, he still found that he felt better.

* * * * *

There was just one other thing that stood out in Mizuki’s mind, before the shadow came.

He’d spent almost six weeks putting off his decision about whether or not he was going to leave to go to the mainland. His appointment book was full again, Aoba, Clear, and Koujaku came by to see him regularly, and almost all of his regulars had returned to his bar. Mizuki knew that the longer he waited to leave, the harder it would be to go—in fact, deep down he suspected it was already too late. But he was finding it harder and harder to be upset about that.

Mizuki was out and about doing errands, thinking idly of who he would ask to take over as his successor if he woke up and decided he couldn’t deal with the responsibility any longer. He was walking up the steps to Koujaku’s house to talk about Rib business when he was nearly flattened by a tall, olive-skinned man in a long black trenchcoat on his way out the front door. “Hey!” Mizuki snapped, narrowly avoiding being run over or shoved off the steps. A cockatoo flapped past Mizuki’s head, alighting on the stranger’s shoulders; its feathers were a shocking pink, and Mizuki stared incredulously at the eyepatch on the bird’s head. 

“Watch it,” said the man, surly. He didn’t even glance at Mizuki, throwing his leg over the huge motorbike parked by the curb, and with a roar of gas-guzzling combustion engine he tore off down the street. Mizuki flipped off his retreating back, and then hurried up the steps, his previous good cheer replaced by worry for Koujaku. 

“Mizuki!” Koujaku greeted him before he’d even gotten all the way up the steps. “Looks like I’m full of visitors today. Come in, come in!”

“Are you alright?” Mizuki asked. He glanced around, but there were no signs of violence in Koujaku’s apartment-slash-hair salon; he could spot nothing out of place. 

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Koujaku. Mizuki looked back at his friend, and now he saw that Koujaku was holding something in his hands that wasn’t a pair of shears or scissors. It was an ornament of some kind; the top was a circle made of wicker, with a web of dried animal hide stretched across it, strung with beads and tiny stones. From the base of the circle dangled long, colorful feathers, delicate as a spring breeze.

Mizuki stared. “What is that?” 

“It’s called a dream-catcher,” said Koujaku. He pressed his lips together tightly, a complicated expression crossing his face. “It’s a gift for Aoba, apparently.” The sour note to his voice told Mizuki exactly what he thought of someone leaving gifts for his boyfriend, but that wasn’t what had Mizuki’s attention.

“From that guy who just left?” Mizuki didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “How does he even know Aoba?”

“He was one of the people who helped us find you and Tae when Morphine was controlling you.” Oh. Mizuki’s stomach gave a by-now familiar lurch, and he pushed it away with an effort. “Apparently, Aoba made an impression.”

“Aoba does that,” said Mizuki. “Dream-catcher, huh.” He paused, eyeing Koujaku, who hung up the little ornament on his mirror with an exaggerated care that said he’d rather be flinging it out the window. 

“I think it means good-bye,” said Koujaku after a moment. 

“Gotcha,” said Mizuki. “Anyway, if you’re not too busy mooning over Aoba to spare a minute…” That got him a laugh, and Koujaku turned around, his normal good humor bouncing back to life. 

Later, Mizuki could remember very little else of their conversation that day, but the dream-catcher stood out in his mind. It was an eerily prescient gift, considering everything else that came after, and Mizuki couldn’t help but wonder if the stranger had somehow known what was going to descend on the island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more information on Shinto and the etiquette of visiting Japanese shrines, you can read up [here](http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2059.html). Thanks again to my beta and my intrepid friends for letting me pick their brains on the details here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monsters start appearing on Midorijima, without any seeming explanation; Clear proves to be even more interesting in this respect than Mizuki had already thought him, but he's still no closer to knowing what Clear looks like behind his gas mask---or why he's stopped dreaming at night.

The day everything changed started out normally—well, for the new value of “normal” on Midorijima; there was still plenty of adjusting to do in the wake of Toue’s withdrawal from the island. Plenty of converting sections of Platinum Jail into something useful for the remaining residents, plenty of sections of wall to be torn down and roads to be cleared out for use, plenty of work to be done towards restoring Midorijima back to an island full of normal citizens, and no longer a play-place for the vapid, rich, and bored.

Mizuki’s bar and tattoo parlor was busier than ever. He’d been afraid that he’d have to start from the ground-up in re-establishing a client base, but to his shock and gratitude, his appointment book had started filling up right away, and now he had a full schedule four weeks out. Some of the appointments were previous clients who’d been in the middle of a larger piece when the Morphine disaster went down, while others were new clients referred from old customers; some were his Rib team-mates, looking to get their team art tag re-done, since over half of their team had had Morphine’s art emblazoned on them against their will, covering their old tag. (Mizuki did those appointments for free.)

He was just finishing cleaning up after his first appointment of the day—Akane, a young woman of about 22 with a sweet smile, a bright future ahead of her as a nurse, and a fresh tattoo of a cherry blossom on her back right shoulder-blade—when he heard a shrill scream from the street outside. Mizuki dropped his broom and tore out of his parlor, yanking the door open to find Akane cowering on the pavement just outside his front door, sobbing. She was hunched in on herself, one arm raised as though to ward off a blow.

“Akane!” Mizuki rushed over to her, and she grabbed for his arm, her face shiny with tears. “Akane, what’s wrong, are you hurt? What happened?”

“He c-came back,” she sobbed, barely coherent. “He came back, don’t let him hurt me!”

“Where is he?” Mizuki demanded. The _he_ had to be her ex Kenji, a real piece of work who’d liked pretty girls almost as much as he’d liked knocking them around when they looked at someone else wrong. Mizuki looked around, scanning the street and the alleys feeding into it, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else there but the two of them. “Akane, I don’t see anyone, are you hurt?”

Akane shook her head. She was calming down a little now, enough to let Mizuki help pull her to her feet. “He was right here,” she said shakily, and swiped the back of her hand across her face.

“Kenji?” Mizuki prompted. If Kenji was coming around again, he’d have to stage an intervention. Kenji had been against Akane joining Dry Juice, but Dry Juice had had something to say about beating up one of their members. Mizuki had thought the asshole had learned his lesson the first time, but apparently not.

But Akane was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “Not Kenji. My dad.”

Mizuki stared. “Akane,” he said slowly. “But your dad is—”

Akane cut him off with another shrill scream, and she cowered behind him, pointing past him into the alley. “There!” she cried, fear twisting her voice into something high and thin, fragile like glass. “He’s there! Oh my god!”

“What—” Mizuki whirled, and felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth. A man stood in the alley directly across from Mizuki’s tattoo shop. He was tall, a few inches taller than Mizuki, with a stocky frame like a bodybuilder or a construction worker, but instead of denim coveralls, he was crammed into what had once been a fine silk suit. Now it was dirty, splotchy in places with mud and stains that looked like blood.

Worse than the blood was the man’s face. He was staring at Akane, his expression accusatory; his one eye rolled in his head, blood smeared along the edge of the crater in his skull where the other half of his face used to be. Black muck dripped down from the jagged hole, and a white, jelly-like substance peeked out. The specter raised his hand, pointing a finger in condemnation at Akane, who let out another choked cry and clutched Mizuki’s arm hard enough to leave a mark.

“A...ka...ne,” the man croaked. His voice was like wind in a rusting pipe, hollow and ruinous. He shuffled forward, moving with the slow inevitability of death.

Mizuki shuddered, his throat working, thick with revulsion and fear. He edged sideways, keeping himself between Akane and the vision of her father, not taking his eyes from the gruesome specter as he reached for a long metal spar leaning against the front of his shop, no doubt leftover from the reconstruction work. Peripherally, he was aware of two things: one, that the … _thing_ in front of them was not real, and two, that that was no guarantee that it couldn’t hurt them.

He’d had plenty of experience with just how badly the insubstantial could hurt you.

“Get inside, Akane,” he said under his breath. She didn’t move—couldn’t move, probably, too petrified with horror or shock—and Mizuki gathered himself anyway, hefting the metal bar in both hands, fear and adrenaline lending him the strength that long illness had drained him of. “You fuck off!” he yelled, and when the vision lurched another foot closer, Mizuki swung the metal spar like a power-hitter going for a home run.

His aim was true, the lead bar cutting right through the specter’s insubstantial shoulder. Mizuki wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t what he got: the bar hit the spot where either nothing or solid flesh should have been, and kept going, but sluggishly, as though he’d taken a swing at a pile of mud. The specter grunted, staggered; Mizuki yelled again and brought up his foot, using the leverage of his stuck weapon to plant his booted heel squarely in the thing’s chest. He shoved hard with his foot, and the specter stumbled backwards, taking the metal bar with him, protruding from his shoulder like a perverted third arm. The thing tripped on a loose piece of brickwork on the road and went sprawling backwards. It hit the ground with a wet _thud_ , and erupted into dirty grey smoke, _poof!_ and then gone. Mizuki stared, dumbfounded, as the smoke blew away almost immediately in the slight breeze.

There was nothing left. The metal spar lay on the ground, not even a smear of blood or dirt on it from its short life as a blunt weapon. “What was that?” Mizuki said aloud. Then the sound of Akane’s wet weeping made him turn, and he put his hands on her shoulders, guiding his Ribmate firmly back inside to calm her with tea and sweet dumplings.

He got no further explanation that day, too busy with the business of calling to arrange for an escort to walk Akane home, before sending out a mass notification/query to everyone in his Coil’s address book. It boiled down to the one essential question:

_What the fuck is going on?_

* * * * *

“Well, this feels familiar,” said the teenager sourly.

Mizuki glanced at him, lip curling. The kid had about 18 piercings too many, spiky blond hair, and the worst taste in clothes Mizuki thought he had ever seen. He was pretty sure the boy’s name was Noiz, which was roughly as terrible a name as the kid’s attitude.

“Yes, yes!” said Clear, clasping his hands together and sitting up very straight, his whole body at attention. He wilted slightly after a few moments. “But Mink-san is not here this time.”

“No, but Mizuki is,” said Koujaku firmly, “and frankly, we’re better off this way.”

Sitting next to Koujaku on the couch, Aoba made a small moue of concern. “I hope he’s alright,” he said. If Aoba missed the way Koujaku’s lip twisted at this, Mizuki did not. But Mizuki strongly suspected that Aoba was perfectly aware; he was just trying not to draw attention to the two of them.

(Mink, Mizuki had learned, was the name of the olive-skinned man on the motor bike who had nearly mowed him over on Koujaku’s front steps. It was comforting to know that Koujaku thought just as poorly of that asshole as Mizuki did.)

They were all in the basement of junk shop Heibon, Haga-san having offered the use of his space as a convenient place to meet, since Aoba had been at work when everything happened. Mizuki would have been just as content to have them all come to his tattoo shop, but the junk shop had been quicker and closer to everyone else. It was the evening of the same day that Mizuki had fought off the not-nearly-dead-enough vision of Akane’s father, and his Coil message had gotten back a half-dozen responses in under ten minutes, all describing similar events to what Mizuki had experienced: monsters and ghosts turning up out of thin air, people being assaulted by the long dead or some variation of the monster under the bed.

Aoba had been the one to text back asking Mizuki to come meet him and a few other people to try to figure out what was going on. Mizuki had closed up shop for the day and made his way to the junk shop, and in short order the others had appeared, though Mizuki was a little puzzled as to why this particular selection of people were who Aoba wanted to see.

The people here were Koujaku, Aoba, Clear, Noiz, and Mizuki. Koujaku and Aoba were at one end of the couch, with Noiz at the far end, looking somewhere between surly and bored. Clear was on the loveseat next to Mizuki, and he was sitting close enough that Mizuki could smell the faint scent of lavender, which was still so weird and simultaneously appealing that for the five minutes Koujaku spent pacing on his phone, talking to one of the members of Beni-Shigure, it was all Mizuki could do not to turn and shove his face into Clear’s neck to try to get a better whiff.

It really was kinda sad, he thought. He had to be truly hard up for sex, if he had it this bad for some urchin in a gas-mask whose face he had never even _seen_. ...No matter how endearingly odd he acted, or how nice he smelled.

“I asked Granny about the weird ghosts everyone is seeing,” Aoba was saying. Mizuki tuned back in, resolutely trying to pay attention to the conversation. “She thinks it could be leftover from some of Toue’s research, some kind of side-effect, but everything we’ve heard indicates that Toue has left the island.”

“Maybe someone got into one of the research facilities in Platinum Jail,” Koujaku said. “Accidentally released something psychoactive into the water supply?”

“That would only make sense if the things everyone were seeing were just illusions,” Noiz pointed out.

“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “When I smacked the thing outside my shop with a pole, I definitely hit _something_. And it blew away as soon as I knocked it over, like it was made of dust.”

“That’s so scary!” Clear was looking at him now, and Mizuki would have bet dollars to donuts that behind his mask, whatever eyes he had were wide open. You could just hear it in his voice. “Mizuki-san, you’re so brave!”

“Ah, it’s what any of you guys would have done, yeah?” Mizuki grinned, a little sheepish. “Anyway, that’s not even the weirdest part. I asked Akane about what we saw, and she said that her dad had been Yakuza, and he’d been killed in a gang fight, shot right in the head at close range. She never saw the body, but I guess she has nightmares about it sometimes.”

“That _is_ weird,” said Aoba. He leaned against Koujaku distractedly, and Koujaku’s arm slid around his waist with the absent-minded ease of a frequent gesture. Noiz’s lower lip twitched, as though suppressing a smirk. “It’d be one thing if there were… I don’t know, drugs, some kind of mind-control making people see their bad dreams, but how come _you_ saw him too?”

Mizuki shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “But some of my other teammates said they saw the same kinds of things. Dead friends, or dead enemies, sometimes. Scary stuff.”

“So people are seeing their nightmares,” Noiz mused, “but they’re not _just_ nightmares. They have a physical presence. And we don’t know who or what’s causing it, or why.”

“Or how to stop it,” said Mizuki.

“And Tae-san had no idea at all what it could be?” At Koujaku’s question, Aoba shook his head, expression grim.

“Shit,” said Mizuki fervently, and everyone nodded.

* * * * *

They didn’t get much else sorted at their little soiree. Noiz, Mizuki, and Koujaku all agreed to reach out through the people in their respective teams to try to find out more information about how far-reaching the effects were, and then they went their separate ways. (Mizuki’s skepticism about Noiz ratcheted yet higher when he found out the team Noiz was referring to was a Rhyme gang, but Aoba seemed to trust the kid, so he left it alone.) Mizuki walked home alone, his metal spar resting against his shoulder, ready to swing at any more specters that came at him out of the murky fog that had settled while they were inside, but nothing stirred.

Incredible as it seemed, life went on.

Not without some serious impact, of course. The new, loosely-cohesive police force that had transitioned into power in the wake of Toue’s withdrawal from Midorijima issued a curfew: no one was to leave their home unless absolutely necessary, and even then, it was heavily advised that no one travel alone or unarmed until the source of the island’s new misfortune had been found and neutralized. They didn’t come out and call the situation a curse, but they didn’t have to; plenty of residents went there on their own. Lots of people were whispering that it was Toue’s doing: his way of dooming the island to misery for forcing him to withdraw and close Platinum Jail.

Mizuki didn’t know what to think. Mostly, he didn’t think too hard about it at all. He had his hands full trying to look out for his Rib team and their families. He was even still doing some tattoo appointments; he hadn’t planned on it, but the day after Akane’s dead father scared the living daylights out of her and Mizuki outside his tattoo shop, four out of six of Mizuki’s appointments arrived right on time for their tattoos, and he wasn’t so flush with cash that he was willing to turn them away.

He let none of them leave alone, though, and he sent a mass email out to all his upcoming clients, giving them the option to keep or cancel their appointments at no penalty, and warning those who did choose to keep their appointments to come with an escort. The last thing he wanted was someone having a panic attack at some ugly vision en route to a tattoo appointment.

Sunday came, and Mizuki kept the shop closed. It was Day 4 of the Yokai Fever (as the city-wide hallucinations of demons, dead relatives, and other monsters had already come to informally be known as), and the streets outside were quiet, even for a Sunday. Mizuki lived not far from a large square, where everything from art shows to weekly markets to festivals were commonly held. On any other Sunday, by 10 in the morning, he would easily be able to hear the sound of shop-owners hawking their wares, and the chatter of market-goers as they went about their day. But with everyone hiding indoors from the growing host of specters and monster roaming the streets, the city was eerily devoid of its usual noise of people.

Right now, though, Mizuki had other things to do aside from lament the empty streets outside his home. He was going to clean his apartment and his shop—Clear and Aoba and Koujaku’s initial cleaning had only lasted so long—and then he was going to do rounds visiting some of his Rib mates who lived alone, checking that everyone was holding up under the stress this week had brought.

He could do this without fear for one very simple reason: Not once had Mizuki witnessed any sort of hallucination or vision that didn’t belong to someone else.

His clients and Rib mates had told him a veritable laundry list of scary stories, enough to set even the most hardened criminal’s hair on end. One client told him how she’d heard the rattling of bones while walking home late one night from work, moments before turning a corner and confronting the Gasha-dokuro: the giant hungry skeleton hunting for humans to eat, jealous of the flesh and life it no longer possessed. Another, one of Mizuki’s oldest Rib-mates, had been chased screaming down an alley by Joro-gumo, the spider-woman. Mizuki thought the worst had been Hajima, who had run the last half-mile to Mizuki’s shop in pure terror from the porcelain doll with the broken face chasing her down the street. Mizuki himself had seen several more gruesome visions beyond Akane’s father, and helped to fight off more than one.

Other visitations ranged from the violently dead to the utterly bizarre (a giant pair of shearing scissors, smeared in blood—Jesus Christ, some people), but all of them had had one thing in common: none of them were from Mizuki’s mind.

Mizuki really didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t like he was sad to not be chased down the street by his own demons, especially after a few months straight of enduring it inside his own head. But he also couldn’t help but wonder if it was something he ought to be concerned about, like some kind of indictment of his status as functional human being. Between the lack of visions and the dreamless sleep, he had to wonder.

(What a thing to be worried about, he thought ruefully. _Does the fact that I’m not having awful visions of my worst fears mean I’ve lost my soul? Also, if the thing in the street doesn’t exist, why does the front door stop it from coming in?_ )

He shuffled over to the wall and stood in front of the full-length mirror on his door, shirtless and in just a pair of exercise pants, eyeing the sad loss of muscle mass he’d endured from being in the hospital for nigh on four months. He’d started working out again almost as soon as he’d gotten out of the hospital (much to the displeasure of his physical therapist), but it was still a pretty big mountain to start from the bottom of. Mizuki shook his head, crossing the bare wooden floor to his dresser, pulling open the top drawer and poking through it for a long-sleeved shirt.

In the middle of pulling it over his head, he heard it: pure, beautiful, wordless song. It was coming from outside, filtered by its passage through the wall of his house but somehow still so bright, like church bells heard from a distance. Mizuki slowed, distractedly tugging the neck-hole over his head and hurrying to his window. He yanked the bottom pane of glass up and shoved his head out to stare down at the street, and was so dumbfounded by what he saw that didn’t even register how cold it was against his barely-covered skin.

Yukie was down on the pavement, and she was in trouble. She was backed against the wall of the building across the street from Mizuki’s shop, fists raised protectively, shoulders hunched against the monstrosity lurching down the cobbled street towards her, even as that buoyant joysong filled the air. The apparition looked like a massive child’s toy come to life: fur that had once been vivid yellow now filthy with grey harbor-mud, one of its button-eyes torn away, two ragged ears to indicate it might once have been intended as a teddy bear.

At the other end of the street stood Clear, looking out of place in this tableau in his lab coat and gas mask. He stood in one spot, weaving faintly back and forth, his hands held slightly out from his sides, palms-up. With a strange sense of detachment—one would almost call it serenity, in stark contrast to the alarm he should be feeling at the sight of the monster in the street—Mizuki observed that Clear was acting strange; he looked almost like he was praying. No, not praying. Chanting, maybe. Or—

Singing. Knowledge hit him in a hot burst, a light going on in his head. His curious, bumbling, overly-polite new friend was the one filling the air with that gorgeous song.

Still stunned at the realization, Mizuki watched in amazement as the insubstantial monster seemed to hesitate, to lose its coherency like a sand-castle melted by an ocean wave. It did not flicker so much as fade, its edges crumbling and becoming less distinct. Yukie straightened, her body losing its language of terror, and then she squared her shoulders and took three quick steps forward. “Go away,” she said (Mizuki could not hear her over Clear’s song, but he could read lips well enough), and shoved at the thing’s chest with both hands.

The monster staggered, losing its balance, and tumbled backwards. It exploded in a cloud of fur and sand and grit as it hit the ground, and then simply evaporated, blowing away in whatever wind was responsible for sweeping away the detritus of dreams. Yukie threw her hands over her head like a cheerleader, fists pumping, and at the same moment the angel song broke off.

At the end of the alley, Clear hopped up and down like a little kid, clapping his gloved hands together in obvious delight. “You did it!” he cried, hurrying down the alley towards Yukie. “You beat it!”

Mizuki blinked his eyes a few time, trying to shake off whatever spell had gripped him. “Oy!” He yelled. Clear and Yukie looked up at the sound of his voice, and then started waving at him. “You two alright?”

“Hiiiii, Mizuki! Yes, I’m fine!”

“Hi hi, Mizuki-san! I am also fine!” Damn, thought Mizuki. It really wasn’t fair, to sound that cute.

“Get in here! I’ll be right down, let me unlock the door for you two!” Mizuki pulled his head back in the window and slammed it shut, shaking his head slightly. He grabbed his jacket on his way out of his room, shrugging it hastily on as he clattered down the stairs. Yukie and Clear were waiting at the front door when he got there, Yukie beaming from ear-to-ear, her hands clasped in Clear’s. “Come inside, already!”

“Mizuki-san, did you see how brave Yukie-san was?” Clear sounded so excited. Yukie shot Mizuki a flushed grin, looking pretty pleased, herself.

“I saw, alright,” said Mizuki. “But what was that you were singing, Clear? I’ve heard you sing before but I didn’t know you could sound like _that_!”

“Seriously!” Yukie patted Clear’s shoulder as they followed Mizuki over to his bar’s counter, cheerfully hopping up on the stool like she always did despite the fact that she wasn’t remotely old enough to drink and wouldn’t be for a good two years. “I was so scared, and then you started singing, and I felt so much better!”

“Ah, well…” Clear fidgeted, clasping and unclasping his hands. “Singing is my talent,” he said after a moment.

“No shit,” said Mizuki. “I’ve never heard anyone sing like that in my life. That was incredible.”

Clear ducked his head, and his shyness was so tangible that despite how badly he wanted to know more, Mizuki quickly diverted their conversation. “What were you two doing in this part of town, anyway? It’s dangerous to go out alone right now, you know that.”

“We still have bills to pay,” said Yukie with a shrug.

“Yes, yes!” Clear spoke up quickly, and Mizuki got the distinct feeling he was eager to move the attention off himself. “Yukie-san was going to come with me to the North district to find some scrap metal! I know of lots of good places to find it. We were going to meet at the square and then walk north together.”

Mizuki shook his head. “You’re just lucky Clear’s singing helped… do whatever it was it just did,” he said, skirting around the elephant in the room only semi-successfully. “But you shouldn’t go to the North district today, it’s too dangerous.”

Yukie and Clear exchanged a glance, and Mizuki’s frown deepened. “You’re gonna go anyway, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Yukie. “Sorry, Mizuki. I know it’s dangerous, but I can’t miss a whole day of work, especially if Clear knows where I can find some good spare parts and scrap metal. I’m barely getting by as it is.”

Mizuki sighed. Even before he’d said it, he’d guessed that Yukie and Clear weren’t going to listen to him. And it was hardly Yukie’s fault, that Toue Inc had ruined the economy on Midorijima so badly that its occupants had to find alternate means of paying their bills. “Fine,” he said resignedly. “Let me finish getting ready, and I’ll go with you.”

“Mizuki-san, you do not have to come with us—”

“No shit,” Mizuki said, interrupting Clear’s protest. “But people are actually getting hurt from these ...demons, nightmares, whatever the hell they are. So if you guys won’t stay home, I’m gonna come along to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Yukie’s expression shifted, slipping from one of cheerful determination to something a little guiltier. “Thanks, Mizuki,” she said softly.

“Mizuki-sannn, you are so thoughtful!” Clear clasped his hands together. 

Mizuki grinned. “Sure,” he said. “We’ll call it that.”

* * * * *

The walk to the North District was a long one, but it went quickly enough. Yukie got over her guilt at putting Mizuki out fairly quickly, and she and Clear were happy to chatter at him about everything and nothing as they walked. Mizuki let Clear lead the way, taking mental note of things, like how empty the streets were, the route they were taking, and the shape of Clear’s butt through his faded trousers. This last one, he tried not to focus on as much, but it was hard when Clear was walking right in front of him and Mizuki had already been nursing a sordid fascination with him for a few weeks now. As they walked, he let his mind wander.

Truth be told, Mizuki _was_ fascinated. Probably it was just the allure of the unknown and unfamiliar—after all, it didn’t get much more mysterious than someone whose face you never saw—but Mizuki couldn’t seem to help himself. Clear was unlike literally everyone else in his life. Mizuki had… well, he hadn’t discouraged Clear from coming around once Mizuki had gotten his shop up and running again, and when Clear had discovered that Mizuki would indulge his curiosity, he’d started coming around two or three times a week, always with a cheerful “Hiii, Mizuki-san!” and another round of questions for him.

And boy, did he have questions.

Mizuki had started to wonder if Clear had been raised under a rock. ...On the moon. ...By aliens. He was charmingly naive about an astonishing number of things, and while sometimes Mizuki could barely believe the basic things he found himself explaining to his strange new friend, the rest of him had developed a certain appreciation for someone who was _that_ earnest and eager. 

And… okay. If he thought about it too hard, it was maybe a little weird to find himself attracted to Clear. He was pretty sure Clear knew what sex _was_ , but there his certainty ended. So for now, he tried to keep it to himself, and hoped that he might get a clue either way as to where Clear stood in that arena. Mizuki could admit to himself that he found Clear’s naiveté appealing, but that didn’t mean he was going to take advantage of him either.

(Every time Clear came by, Mizuki made him hot chocolate. “No spikes,” he’d say, and Clear would laugh like Mizuki had just told the best joke in the world. And then Clear would sit at his bar and ask him whether it hurt to dye your hair, or why some people kept All-mates when some people preferred organic pets, or what happened to your mind if you found yourself sleep-walking. And Mizuki would try his best to answer, even when he had barely any idea of why someone would care, much less what the answer was.)

Today, though, Mizuki was keeping an eye and an ear out for trouble. He glanced down every alley they passed, and checked behind them frequently as they walked. Twice they encountered phantoms, but they belonged neither to Yukie nor Clear. One was a huge black hound, eerily silent, with gas-green eyes; the other was a young man—somehow familiar, but Mizuki couldn’t quite place him—naked save for the ugly gashes that criss-crossed his body and a cluster of chains that wrapped over his shoulders and arms. He shuffled down the street in front of them, clutching at the chains, moaning dismally.

Clear stared after the second phantom, even when it had passed out of their path, and Mizuki and Yukie had started forward again. “What’s up?” Mizuki asked, peering down the street after the aimless specter. His moans were still audible, and the despair in them was enough to send chills down Mizuki’s spine.

“That ghost looked familiar,” said Clear, sounding troubled. “But I am not sure…” He trailed off, shaking his head slightly. “Forgive me, Mizuki-san, I was distracted.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Yukie, walking back to the two of them. Mizuki glanced at her, and saw that she had both arms crossed over her chest, her shoulders hunched in on herself a little. “That shit’s creepy.”

Mizuki had to agree. He might not personally be one of their own demons, but the vision of the boy covered in chains and bloody gashes was enough to set anyone’s teeth on edge.

They reached the North District without further incident, though. To Mizuki’s surprise, several other people were also out, picking through some of the more recent and less offensive-smelling piles of garbage at the edge of one of the landfills. Mizuki kept his crossbar out anyway, and hovered a short distance from Clear and Yukie while they set to work.

He found himself distracted in short order, though. Clear did his best to help Yukie pick out metal or scrap parts, but he didn’t seem to have the same eye for actual value that she did. More than once, Mizuki had to stifle his laughter when Clear would run over to her, excited to show her some shiny object he’d found, only to shuffle dejectedly back to where he’d found it when she pronounced it nothing more than cheap plastic or tin. The childlike excitement combined with the strange outfit made him seem like some kind of… oversized bondage puppy-dog. And he might have such a face that he needed to keep it hidden behind that damn mask, but Mizuki again found himself admiring the shape of his ass through those wretched trousers he always wore, and had to look away before Yukie caught him staring.

Mizuki mused over the question of the mask, directing his eyes away from Clear and Yukie, watching a flock of birds making their way east in the sky overhead. Clear couldn’t really be that ugly, though, could he? His voice was fine. He didn’t walk with a stoop, he didn’t limp, his hands didn’t seem deformed, and he was of average build. Yeah, okay, he said he had a skin condition, but it couldn’t be _that_ bad. And he could sing like a songbird. It was just so strange. Of course, none of that necessary meant anything, but this wasn’t the Boy in the Bubble; Clear had never once said anything about having a delicate constitution. And he even lived in this part of town, didn’t he? So it was unlikely he needed the mask to protect his lungs from anything…

A sharp cry from behind him broke his concentration. Immediately, Mizuki spun around, hefting the crossbar in both hands in preparation, but Yukie and Clear were nowhere in sight. “Clear!” Mizuki yelled. “Yukie, where are you?”

“Over here!” came the answer—Yukie’s voice, frightened and slightly distant, coming from the other side of a pile of stripped tires. “Get over here, quick!” Mizuki was already running towards her voice, cursing his distraction. Why had he agreed to let them come out, why did he think coming to this part of town was a good idea—

He rounded the corner and found a reverse of the scene he’d witnessed earlier that day: Clear was the one backed against a pile of trash, his gloved hands up to cover his face, with Yukie in front of him, a white-knuckle grip on a spar of wood she’d clearly just picked up off the ground. In front of them stood a man.

At first, Mizuki couldn’t even tell he was a hallucination. He looked completely normal: just an old man, in a rather shabby-looking research coat (much like Clear’s, Mizuki noted distractedly) and a pair of old work boots, with greying hair and a stoop in his spine. But the illusion of normalcy fell apart as Mizuki put himself between the old man and his two friends: where the man’s eyes should have been were what looked like black squiggles, like an old photograph where someone had gone over the eyes with black marker.

The vision moaned; he took a lurching step forward, raising a hand, whether in accusation or beseechment, Mizuki had no way of knowing. “Cleeaaaar…” His voice was thin and cracked, the exact pitch of nails on a chalkboard.

“Grandpa, please!” Clear cried. His voice was muffled by the gas-mask and his hands in front of his face. “I’m s-sorry, I tried!”

“I should have known you were a mistake…” The ghostly old man took another lurching step towards their Clear and Yukie, but Mizuki had heard enough. He hefted his metal spar, planted both his feet, and swung hard. He connected squarely with what would have been the meat of the old man’s shoulder, if the man had been anything more than a nasty hallucination. The metal end of his spar caught in the muddy pseudosubstance of the thing, and the hallucination yowled in protest for all of a few seconds before it burst into a puff of nasty yellowish gas and dissipated into the wind.

Mizuki let the spar drop from his numb hands. It clattered to the ground with a dull thud, and then the next noise Mizuki was aware of was the sound of quiet weeping. Clear’s shoulders were shaking, and Yukie had both her arms around him, her expression tight. “Clear,” said Mizuki softly. “Clear, hey… It’s all right, he’s gone. He was just a bad dream.”

He could have sworn Clear had called the old man his grandpa. Mizuki wondered what had happened, whether his grandfather had held such terror for Clear in life—and what had happened to cause those squiggles over his eyes like that.

“I-I’m fine, I am so sorry…” Clear straightened, and Yukie let him go, backing up to give him a little space. Clear turned and bowed to first Yukie and then Mizuki, that deep, oddly formal bow from the waist that was now so familiar. “Thank you, Mizuki-san, Yukie-san. I apologize—”

“Oh come on!” Yukie cut him off before he could really get going, her face flushed. “You’re really gonna apologize? You saved me from a giant stuffed teddy bear, and then you and Mizuki escort me all the way out here to go junk-diving, and you think you have _anything_ to apologize for?”

“Yukie’s right,” said Mizuki. Impulsively, he reached out, putting a hand on Clear’s shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze. “It’s really fine, Clear. Everyone’s in the same boat right now. Don’t apologize for anything.”

Clear looked from Yukie to Mizuki, and for the millionth time, Mizuki wished he could see his friend’s face. “My grandfather would be happy to know that I have found such wonderful friends,” he said finally. His voice was thick, as though he was still trying not to cry. “Please do not think badly of him. He was… he was nothing like what you just saw.”

“Yeah?” Mizuki smiled. “You should tell us about him sometime, then.”

“Yeah!” said Yukie, and beamed.

“I would like that very much,” said Clear. Again he bowed. Privately, Mizuki sighed. One day, perhaps, he’d break Clear of the habit of being so formal, but today was clearly not that day.

The rest of their trip passed uneventfully. Yukie and Clear found more scrap metal than they could even carry, and Clear promised to bring her back again very soon in order to collect more. Mizuki offered to let her keep what she couldn’t carry at his tattoo parlor, and the three of them took a big load back to Mizuki’s shop, there to stash it in his closet until she could come back to collect the rest of it.

They saw no more monsters or visions that day, much to Mizuki’s relief; he might be used to dealing with them by now, but that didn’t make it fun, or easy. Clear volunteered to walk Yukie home, and Mizuki felt a little better when Yukie insisted that Clear spend the night at her place, and Clear finally accepted.

He lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling, finally giving in and thinking about his newest friend. Clear was sweet, kind, giving… and a total enigma. The topic of Clear’s grandfather had never come up before, which didn’t necessarily mean much; Clear seemed to prefer to ask Mizuki questions and let him talk, and Mizuki had never been one to pry. But if Clear thought so highly of his grandfather, why would have have seen the vision of him looking so disturbing? And what kind of grandfather would have been okay with letting a beloved grand-child walk around with a gas-mask on all the time? Or was it Clear’s grandfather’s idea in the first place….?

Mizuki didn’t know it, but he’d be finding out the answers very soon. His last thought, before he went to bed, was that if Clear’s face was even half as sweet as the rest of him, he was still leaps and bounds ahead of almost anyone Mizuki knew—but that somewhere along the lines, he’d stopped caring how Clear looked at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here](http://yokai.com/about/) is an excellent resource on yokai, including lots of common ones and a history of them. (You will find more information about the Gasha-dokuro and Joro-gumo there, as well.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mizuki wakes up to an unexpected but extremely welcome guest... followed by one not-so-welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Chapter Four! Many thanks to joannaestep for doing this [gorgeous illustration for this chapter](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/post/80070395175/chapter-4-of-fever-is-up-now-so-of-course-i), found at the link for your tumblr needs, and also seen at the end of the chapter! Thanks as always go to my wonderful beta for being such a good sport and such a tireless reader for me.

The smell of frying eggs was what woke him. Eggs, and bacon.

Mizuki rolled onto his back with an effort, blinking uncomprehendingly up at the ceiling. Something sure fucking smelled good. Maybe he’d left the window open, and….? No, wait, it was the middle of winter; even he wasn’t dumb enough to leave windows open at this time of year, not if he wanted to keep from freezing his ass off. So…

Abruptly he realized he could hear noises. Someone was in his apartment. Mizuki sat up, swinging his legs out of bed and putting his feet carefully on the ground. He went to his closet and pulled out some clothes, slipping into a pair of pants and a long-sleeve shirt. He glanced at the metal spar in the corner, leaning against the wall right where he left it, and after a moment of hesitation he picked it up and slipped out of his bedroom, headed down the hall towards the kitchen.

He got about halfway down the hallway before he realized that he knew the voice he was hearing, and he relaxed. Mizuki padded to the doorway of his kitchen and looked in—but he whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t what he got.

The voice belonged to Clear, which he had guessed in the hallway. But Clear was in nothing but his gas-mask and a frilly pink apron, walking barefoot (and bare- _bottomed_ ) around Mizuki’s kitchen, talking to himself as he pulled things down from the cupboard and checked on the pan full of food sauteing on the stove-top. A few half-empty bags sat on Mizuki’s counter; belatedly, Mizuki realized that they were full of groceries. “Clear?” he said incredulously.

“Ah, Mizuki-sannn!” Clear turned on the spot. “Good morninnnng! I made you breakfast, so I hope that you are hungry!” He gestured with a spatula at the spread of dishes already on the table; a stray thought flickered through Mizuki’s head then—he didn’t even own a spatula, much less any of the shiny mixing bowls sitting on the counter, so where the hell had all of this come from?—and then was gone, sent packing by the fragrant smells wafting from his laden kitchen table.

There were so many questions to ask. He didn’t even know where to start. Ultimately, his stomach decided for him. “Are those pancakes?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes! Blueberry pancakes. My own recipe!” Clear set the spatula down and hurried over to the kettle on the stove, which had just started jetting hot steam into the air. “There is also a mushroom, pepper, and cheese omelette, and bacon, and this is a spinach frittata… oh, and those are donuts! Not as good as Tae-san’s, but I hope they will be acceptable—”

“How much food did you _make_? No wait, how much do you think I’m going to _eat_?” Mizuki came slowly over the table, staring slack-jawed at the number of plates his table was groaning under. 

“My grandfather always taught me that if someone does you a kindness, you should be sure to return it!” Clear bustled over to the table and added a small bowl of fruit to the epic feast already laid out, and then backed away, bowing low from his waist. “Please accept my gratitude!”

“You broke into my house to make me breakfast,” Mizuki said. “In nothing but an apron.” He paused, and then, because he was only human and no one could be _that_ innocent, he asked, carefully, “Clear… Is this—you’re coming on to me, right?”

“I had read that hadaka apron cooking is something that men find attractive,” said Clear after a moment. “But I can put other clothes on, if you prefer…” He sounded so apprehensive that it was all Mizuki could do to stifle a sudden urge to laugh. _Oh no,_ he wanted to say. _The breaking-and-entering is fine, but the nude booty in a frilly apron—that’s going too far!_

“A lot of men do like that, it’s true, and I’m one of them,” he said instead, grinning a little as he pulled out a chair and sank down. He still had to be careful. He wanted to be _sure_.“But you didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Clear. I mean, come on, what was I gonna do; stand by and watch you get terrorized by the, uh, ghost of your grandfather?”

Clear hunched his shoulders, wringing his hands a little. The gesture was so idiosyncratic with his appearance-—nude except for the pink frilly apron and that goddamn gas-mask—that Mizuki had to reach out and grip the edge of the table to keep from just leaning over and pulling Clear into his lap.

“It is not just yesterday, though,” Clear said softly, breaking Mizuki’s distraction. “You have been very kind to me, Mizuki-san.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Clear,” said Mizuki. “You come around my shop and visit me all the time. Hell, you were coming to visit me in the hospital before I even got back on my own two feet. You’re one of my friends, and friends take care of each other, yeah?” As he spoke, he reached over for a plate, and started putting things on it almost at random; a few slices of bacon, a piece of toast, an entire blueberry pancake that he had to tug off the top of the stack with his fork. The smell was positively mouth-watering… but he was still having a hard time taking his attention from Clear.

Clear crept closer, hovering a few feet away from Mizuki, his hands still clasped in front of him. Mizuki, who had never seen Clear without his usual assortment of grubby used lab clothing, couldn’t help but note that his hands were soft and pink, all the nails perfectly even. The hadaka apron on Clear might not have been exactly what was traditionally intended, but it was definitely having an effect. “I am glad that you consider me a friend, Mizuki-san,” he said shyly.

Christ, this was just unfair. “Clear…” Mizuki set his plate down and leaned over, holding his arm out. “Come here.”

“Mizuki-san…?”

“Come here, baby,” Mizuki repeated, softer. Clear dithered for a moment and then took a few steps towards him, and then Mizuki slid his arm around Clear’s waist and tugged him into his lap, pushing gently until Clear sat down on top of Mizuki’s thighs. Clear twisted around in his lap, looking down at Mizuki from significantly closer. “That’s better,” said Mizuki. “Is this okay?”

“Yes, it is very okay,” said Clear after a moment, and Mizuki couldn’t be totally sure, because—mask, but he thought Clear sounded pleased. His impression was confirmed when a warm hand settled on his arm, Clear wrapping a hand around Mizuki’s bicep and squeezing.

“Good,” said Mizuki. “I think it’s pretty okay, too.” He grinned up at Clear, and then, because he was only human and he could only resist for so long, he added, “It would be even better if I could see your face, though.”

At this, Clear stiffened, and for a moment Mizuki thought he was going to lose his lapful of adorable enigma, but to his relief Clear stayed where he was. “If I did that, I think you would be unhappy,” said Clear after a moment. “And I would rather make you happy, than unhappy.”

God _dammit_. Mizuki had never wanted to kiss Clear more than he did right now, and not just because Clear’s warm bottom was sitting right on top of his half-hard dick, but he managed to restrain himself anyway. “Why do you think it would make me unhappy?” he asked, and patted Clear’s leg through his apron. “You’ve done a pretty good job of making me happy so far.”

“My grandfather said that… I should keep my face covered, because I’m abnormal. That I would scare people, and they might hurt me, if they saw my face.” Clear just sounded sad now, instead of anxious.

Well, that explained a lot. Mizuki hugged him around his waist, fighting the urge to bad-mouth Clear’s grandfather. But after already witnessing him (or rather, the weird-ass hallucination of him, which admittedly wasn’t necessarily representative of fucking _anything_ ) driving Clear to tears, he wasn’t too inclined to give the old man’s words any weight. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Mizuki said, after a moment. “But I promise that I like you a whole lot, and I don’t think how your face looks is likely to change how I feel very much.”

Clear hunched his shoulders again. “I would like to take off my mask for you,” he said after another few moments, and Mizuki couldn’t quite suppress the noise he made when abruptly a warm hand was creeping into his, Clear lacing their fingers together.

“Okay,” said Mizuki, carefully. “Do you want to do it, or…is it okay if I do it?”

“You can do it,” said Clear. “I trust you.”

Mizuki smiled a little at that. “Okay, then,” he said. “I’m gonna take your gas-mask off now.” He squeezed Clear’s hand, and then let go, gently reaching up to take hold of the edges of the gas-mask. He felt around until he found the straps, and loosened them enough that he could tug Clear’s mask up and over his head. Distantly, he was aware of the fact that he was holding his breath. Clear held perfectly still as Mizuki pulled his gas-mask free of his face, and then—

Mizuki had thought about this moment, of course: what Clear might look like if Mizuki could ever convince him to take the gas-mask off, like the princess wondering what her frog prince would look like once freed of his curse. He’d guessed that Clear might have a nasty scar, or an unsightly birthmark, or something, but he’d had a hard time believing that Clear could really be that ugly, especially when the rest of him was so cute.

What he was not expecting was for Clear to be fucking _stunning._ “Clear,” he said wonderingly. “Oh my god.”

He stared, literally dumbfounded, at Clear’s sweet, well-formed face: his almost ladylike features, his pale skin, the perfect Cupid’s bow of his pink lips, and the two little moles just beneath them, the delicate clamshell-pink of his eyes. “Mizuki-san?” Clear said, nervous. The shyness in his voice broke through Mizuki’s daze, and Mizuki straightened, fingers tightening on Clear’s thighs through his apron. “Is it very bad?”

“Wow,” said Mizuki. “Uh, no. _No_. It’s not bad at all.” Understatement of the century.

Clear’s expression lightened, some of the anxiety leaving him. “How do I look?” he asked after a moment, and something about the way he asked it made Mizuki think that he’d been waiting for years to ask it of someone. The idea made him so lonely that he hugged Clear again instinctively, dropping a quick, automatic kiss on his shoulder.

“You’re beautiful, Clear,” he said, trying to put every drop of sincerity in him into those two words. “You’re not abnormal or ugly at all.”

“My face is normal?” Mizuki watched as Clear reached up, touching his face with his own fingers, tracing over his features like a blind man given sight for the first time, eyes wide.

“Yep. Perfectly normal. See…” Mizuki mirrored Clear’s gesture, lifting a hand to his own face to trace his own nose, and then press a fingertip lightly to each eyelid, and then his own lips. “One nose, two eyes, one mouth.”

“So I look like you, then.” The wonder in Clear’s voice was either precious or heartbreaking, Mizuki couldn’t quite decide. Clear smiled then, and the expression changed his whole face; it was like watching someone light up a lamp made of delicate stained glass. Mizuki’s heart tightened in his chest, a sweet and precious ache.

_I am so fucked,_ he thought.

“No, sweetheart,” he said gently. “I told you: you’re beautiful. Your face is better than fine. Definitely better than mine.” And to prove his point, Mizuki leaned forward and kissed that sweet smile, pressing his mouth to Clear’s warm lips. Clear made a soft, startled noise, and then tilted his head slightly, carefully kissing Mizuki back.

Right then, caught up in the warm glow of kissing Clear for the very first time, Mizuki had one of those moments that seems to stretch forever and ever— the kind of moment that lasted so long because at the start of it, you were one person, and by the end of it, you had jumped off a cliff deep inside yourself to become someone totally new.

In the instant before their lips met, Mizuki was many things: the leader of the biggest Rib team on Midorjima, an only child, a consummate bachelor, an optimist by nature and a cynic by experience. By the time Clear pulled away, his face flushed pink, Mizuki knew he was also irrevocably in love.

“Hi,” Mizuki said intelligently, and Clear’s face split open with another grin. Mizuki grinned back, because it wasn’t like there was anything else remotely better to do. “I think we should keep doing that,” he said. “Kissing, I mean.”

Clear laughed. “It’s really nice, Mizuki-san,” he said. He cupped Mizuki’s face in his hand, stroking his thumb over the tattoo just under Mizuki’s eye. Mizuki gazed up at him, wondering what else he could say to get Clear to laugh like that again. “But Aoba-san will be here soon, so maybe I should put on some pants.” Fuck, Clear was so cute when he laughed! His little nose wrinkled up so adorably, and—

“Wait, what?” Mizuki sat up abruptly as the meaning behind Clear’s soft, apologetic words finally penetrated his addled brain. “Why is Aoba coming over?” His fuzzy delight went sour, like lemon juice poured in chocolate.

“I don’t know!” Clear looked distressed, and Mizuki lifted his hand, rubbing Clear’s shoulder in automatic reassurance. “I just saw it on your Coil. I didn’t mean to snoop, Mizuki-san, but it was on your counter and it went off, and I just picked it up to move it out of the way so I didn’t get it dirty.”

“Crap,” Mizuki said. He couldn’t quite keep the grumpiness out of his voice, but he hugged Clear around the waist anyway so that Clear would know that it wasn’t him Mizuki was crabby at. “Well— ”

He’d been going to say something like, _you should put some pants on_ or _Maybe I should finish eating before he gets here,_ but before he could get another word out, a knock came at the door, followed by Aoba’s voice through the wood: “Mizuki, you there?”

“God _dammit_ , Seragaki,” Mizuki muttered, and then raised his voice. “Just a second!” Clear tried to slide off Mizuki’s lap then, but Mizuki grabbed him before he could get up. “Hey, hey, just one more second, yeah?”

“Mizuki-san,” Clear protested, but it was weak, his hands on Mizuki’s shoulders clingy instead of shoving.

“I know, I know,” Mizuki said very softly. “Just…” He lifted his face again, and gave Clear another soft, lingering kiss. Clear kissed back, his fingertips digging into Mizuki’s back, and when Mizuki broke away, Clear gave a soft little sigh that went straight and unhelpfully to Mizuki’s dick.

“Put your dick away and come let me in! Jeez, what do I gotta do to get you out of bed?”

“I’m coming, you little shit! What the hell are you doing up in my grill so damn early, anyway?” Mizuki stood up, hugging Clear as he set the other man on the ground, putting every ounce of self-control into resisting the urge to reach out and grope Clear’s pert bottom. Instead, he went to the door, and flicked the lock before twisting the knob and pulling the door open.

“Finally! Damn, it’s about—” Aoba stopped mid-snark, blinking at Mizuki. Or, rather, past Mizuki. “Uh, I didn’t realize you had company… Hi, Clear.”

“Hello, Aoba-san!” Clear sounded like his normal cheerful self, and Mizuki braced himself for Aoba’s reaction to Clear’s beautiful face, hidden for so long behind his gas mask, but Aoba looked merely bemused. Mizuki glanced automatically back into his apartment, and stiffened in shock.

“Nice apron, Clear,” said Aoba, sweeping past Mizuki into the apartment. “Goes good with the gas-mask. Did Mizuki con you into it?”

“Hey, that’s—” Mizuki floundered, still thrown by the sight of Clear standing there in just his apron and his gas-mask. When had he even put it back on? It had taken Mizuki all of ten seconds to get to the door, which he _guessed_ was enough time, but…

“No, Mizuki-san did not ask me for it!” Clear bowed low, from the waist, hands pressed to the tops of his thighs. “He escorted me and Yukie-san yesterday and protected me from the ghosts, so I wanted to repay his kindness by making him breakfast!”

“Oooookay,” said Aoba cheerfully, his eyebrows raised. He came over and sat down at the table, dropping his bag to the floor; Ren poked his head out as soon as the bag hit the floor, wriggling out and wagging his fluffy blue butt as he glanced around the room.

“REN-SAN!” Clear clapped his hands, and Ren’s ears drooped. Mizuki had to hide a laugh in his hands as Clear scooped Ren up from the floor, fluffing his fur up like a child. “Fluff fluff fluffy!!”

“Aoba…” Ren sounded about as put-upon as a doggy all-mate could be, and some of Mizuki’s grumpiness dissipated.

“Suck it up, Ren,” Aoba said. He grinned at Mizuki, who grinned back. “So wait, YOU made all this, Clear? You had to have. Because Mizuki can’t cook to save his life—”

“Hey, come on!” protested Mizuki, laughing, as he sank into the other chair. Clear put Ren down again and bustled over to the counter, bringing over two cups of tea. “See if I let you have any.”

“By all means, eat this whole spread by yourself.” Aoba gestured expansively at the covered table. “I’ll be waiting to dial the paramedics to come pump your stomach when you fall over from stuffing yourself to the gills. And I’ll film it, too.”

“Shut up, you asshole,” Mizuki said cheerfully. “Clear, is it okay if Aoba helps me eat some of this food? It looks so good, I wouldn’t want any of it to go to waste.”

“Ahhh… Whatever you want to do is fine, Mizuki-san. I made this food for you, but Aoba-san is of course welcome to have some!”

“Thanks, Clear,” said Aoba. “It looks amazing.”

It turned out to taste as amazing as it looked, which Mizuki discovered after the first delicious mouthful of blueberry pancake. Some of it had gone a little cool, from the brief interlude between when Clear had finished making it and now, but that made no difference whatsoever in how good it tasted.

Clear finally sat down to have a little with them, when it became obvious that the amount of food present was far and away beyond what Aoba and Mizuki could hope to finish themselves. (Mizuki fought the impulse to pull Clear into his lap again, painfully aware of Clear’s nudity, but for a naked man wearing naught but a gas-mask and apron, Clear managed to be incredibly dainty while he ate.)

“I still don’t know how you manage to eat with that mask on,” said Aoba at one point. He was watching Clear with a dubious expression, his own fork of scrambled eggs halfway to his mouth. “You sure you don’t wanna take it off?”

Mizuki braced himself. But Clear just folded his hands demurely in front of him, and said, “Thank you, Aoba-san, but I am fine like this! Please do not worry on my account.”

“Suit yourself,” said Aoba, and went back to his eggs. Mizuki dropped his eyes, hiding a smile in a forkful of cinnamon bun, and then leaned over the table, reaching for his cup of tea. He let his hand brush over the back of Clear’s wrist, and was rewarded with an almost-imperceptible shudder. Picturing the blush spreading through Clear’s cheeks, the way his pretty pink eyes would go wide…

“Earth to Mizuki. You still with us?” Aoba’s voice broke Mizuki’s apparent distraction, and he sat up like someone had stuck a pin in his back. “Dang, dude. Did you hit your head yesterday, or something?”

“Shut up,” said Mizuki, nettled. “You’re the one busting into my apartment at fuck o’clock in the morning, and you still haven’t even told me why you came over in the first place!”

“Yeah, and you haven’t asked till now,” said Aoba, which was true, and also annoying. “Neither of you asked, actually, which—Clear doesn’t surprise me, no offense, Clear—but Mizuki usually wouldn’t even let me in the building at this hour of the day without demanding what the hell I wanted him out of bed for.” He bent down and picked Ren up off the floor, settling the Allmate into his lap.

“Well, unlike you, someone woke me up real nice with breakfast, so luckily I didn’t have to take your head off at the neck for getting me out of bed so early.” Mizuki tried to keep his voice to the same level of cheerful nonchalance it was usually at, but inwardly, he was bristling. It was dumb; there wasn’t even anything to get defensive about, not really, but—

But he wasn’t ready to share anything yet. And apparently, judging from his gas-mask, neither was Clear.

“The yokai are getting worse,” said Aoba, cutting off Mizuki’s rambling. “A man was killed this morning by a phantom outside the flower shop, over on Aoyagi Street. Another lady nearly lost her leg when she got attacked by a ghost dog.”

Mizuki stared, stunned. “What?” he managed after a moment. “But they hardly even have any substance. I thought…”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Aoba took a deep breath, and let it out through nose, the _whoosh_ of air like a balloon deflating, like Mizuki’s chest felt like it was doing right now. “But there’s a mandatory curfew for all citizens of the Old Resident District. We have to do something.”

Mizuki raised a eyebrow. “We do?” he repeated. “Look, I agree something needs to be done, but why is it our job? Not that I think the police are so great, but at least they get paid for this shit.”

“Right, because now is when _you_ start trusting in the police,” Aoba retorted, nettled. He looked uncomfortable, and instead of meeting Mizuki’s eyes, his gaze skittered away, landing on an imaginary spot at the edge of the table. “I don’t want to count that someone else will fix it,” Aoba said after a moment. 

“Yeah, alright,” said Mizuki reluctantly. He still thought Aoba was acting strange, but he also wasn’t wrong; the police force on Midorijima were only marginally better now than they used to be, and what they used to be was outright criminal. Now he was kind of glad Aoba had waited till after breakfast to drop this bombshell in their laps. What remaining appetite he’d had was instantly gone. 

Without even thinking about it, Mizuki reached over and took Clear’s hand under the table. Clear caught his breath and glanced at him, but said nothing. _Shit,_ thought Mizuki again, distantly, but out loud he said, “So what are you planning?”

“I still think Toue’s research has something to do with this,” Aoba said. “So, I’m going into the north end of Platinum Jail, where Granny said the chemical research division was located, and we’re gonna see if we can find something. Anything.”

“We?” Mizuki said again. He raised an eyebrow, and Aoba made a face. “No, that’s not what I—shut up, of course I’m coming.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Now Aoba was grinning, even as he raised both hands palms-out in apparent surrender.

“You didn’t have to, jackass,” Mizuki shot back, suppressing a grin of his own. “So, what, you, me, Koujaku…?”

“I will come too!” Clear straightened, urgent. “I want to help!”

“Clear, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Aoba began, but Mizuki shook his head.

“No, Clear’s great, actually. You should see the effect when he sings—he has this song that he knows that breaks that weird funk the phantasms put people in, it’s incredible. He should definitely come.”

Aoba blinked. “Oh,” he said, bemused. “That’s—awesome. Okay, sounds good.” Clear clapped both his hands together, actually bouncing in his seat. “This is a dangerous mission, not a party,” Aoba added, in what Mizuki was quite sure was an attempt at a stern voice, but the effect was rather lost by the grin that kept tugging at the corners of Aoba’s mouth.

“Right,” said Mizuki. “So, you, me, Koujaku, Clear… anyone else? I can get some people from Dry Juice—”

“That would be good, yeah,” said Aoba. “Noiz is coming too.” It was Mizuki’s turn to make a face, even though he wasn’t particularly surprised. “Save it; he’s good to have along!”

“Ugh,” said Mizuki, and left it at that. “Okay, fine, whatever. When are we going? I can get some people together in two, three hours tops.”

“Let’s do that, then,” said Aoba. He stood up, and grabbed up his coat, and at that moment something occurred to Mizuki.

“Hey, Aoba, wait…” Aoba looked at him, expectant. “Why did you come all this way to have this conversation? Wouldn’t it have been faster to just call?”

Aoba raised both his eyebrows. “I did try to call,” he said. “But the phones were all dead. I tried on Koujaku’s phone, too. Same deal. It took me three tries just to get that Coil message to go through.”

Mizuki stared at him. “The fuck?” First the yokai were showing up in daylight and actually hurting people, now phones weren’t even fucking working properly? What the hell was going on?

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” said Aoba. “So go ahead and try to get ahold of some team-members, but either way, meet us at the entrance to Platinum Jail at noon, okay? I don’t think we want to wait any longer than that.” He turned to look at Clear, and the strain in his face eased a little. “Thanks for breakfast, Clear. It was really good.”

“Ahhhh, it was my pleasure! I am glad you like my cooking, Aoba-san!”

“What happened to ‘Master’?” Aoba said musingly, and then grinned at the way Clear started falling over himself apologizing. “Kidding! Jeez. Anyway… see you guys in a few hours. I’m gonna go find Noiz.”

“You do that,” said Mizuki faintly. His head was still spinning from Aoba’s news, and from his only-somewhat-suppressed chemistry with Clear.

The door shut. Mizuki stood in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, trying to collect himself. Behind him, Clear coughed, very quietly, but it was enough to jolt Mizuki back to the moment, and he turned around.

“Mizuki-san, I think I should go,” Clear said, and to Mizuki’s endless gratification he sounded regretful. “I don’t want to distract you while you try to get ready.”

“You might be distracting, but believe me, I’m happy for it,” said Mizuki. He crossed the kitchen back over to where Clear stood. He brought his hands up, pausing a moment so Clear could tell him to stop if he wanted to, but when Clear made no move to interrupt him Mizuki went to the fastenings of Clear’s gas-mask again and gently lifted it away from his head.

Clear’s face appeared again, and warmth immediately filled Mizuki’s chest at the way Clear was looking back at him. “I will stay if you want me to,” he said, smiling; Mizuki could do no less than smile back.

He reached out, setting the gas-mask on the counter without looking, and then slid his arms around Clear, cupping Clear’s face in one hand, stroking his thumb over the fine arch of his cheekbone. “I want you to,” Mizuki said softly. “We can walk over to meet Aoba and the others when we’re ready, yeah?”

“Okay,” said Clear, but he still sounded troubled. Mizuki’s smile faded. “MIzuki-san…” Clear began hesitantly. “There’s something I should tell you. I’m—my grandpa…”

This again. Something inside Mizuki snapped. “Hey,” Mizuki interrupted, unable to help himself, “hey, no.”

“But Mizuki-san—”

“Look, I get it, okay? I know.” He didn’t, but he also couldn’t bring himself to listen to Clear go on and on again about the crazy grandpa he’d clearly adored who had just as clearly done a stand-up job of teaching Clear to think himself repulsive. “You’re _fine_ ,” Mizuki said firmly. “There is nothing about you that is not perfect just as you are, okay?”

Clear’s eyes went wide. For several seconds he could only stare at Mizuki, his face flushing with color. “Really?” he managed at length, and oh god, no one should sound that surprised at basic confirmation of their personhood. “You mean it?”

“Really,” said Mizuki. “You’re perfect.” He smiled reassuringly at Clear, hoping to emphasize his sentiment, and squeezed Clear’s shoulder when Clear managed a small smile in return. “I know there are some things I’m not great at, but I’d be stupid to let that stop me from liking you.”

At that, Clear’s smile got huge, and he put both his arms around Mizuki in a tight hug. “Thank you, Mizuki-san,” he said, voice soft and hoarse with emotion.

“You’re welcome, baby,” Mizuki murmured. They kissed again, Mizuki cradling Clear close, cupping the back of his head in one hand. They stood that way for awhile in the center of Mizuki’s kitchen, until Mizuki finally forced himself to break away.

“Go put some pants on so I can concentrate,” Mizuki said, grinning. Clear laughed, and Mizuki thought his heart was going to burst with affection.

“Okayyy! I will put the food away too, while you get ready to go!”

“Sounds good,” said Mizuki, and ripped himself away to go see if he could make his Coil work, wondering all the while at _why_ anyone would work to convince someone as sweet and lovable as Clear to hide themselves away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Some more info about Hadaka apron can be found [here](http://lovehina.wikia.com/wiki/Naked_Apron), but if you don't feel like clicking, as you probably figured, "hadaka" just means "naked."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery of where the monsters on Midorijima are coming from comes a little closer to being answered, but no one likes the direction things are going. Or: Mizuki gets a little closer to Clear and then runs into some people he'd much rather forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it, this story has a playlist now; you can find the tumblr post (with more art by joannaestep!) [here](http://feels-like-fire.tumblr.com/post/80268900983/electric-feel-dmmd-fanmix), and you can listen to it on 8tracks [here](http://8tracks.com/feelslikefire/electric-feel).

“So,” said Mizuki, unable to help himself despite feeling like the first-prize winner of the Worst Timing Award, “can I ask you something?”

Clear glanced at him, then back at the others. Aoba, Koujaku, and Noiz were walking slightly ahead of them, with what members of both Beni-Shigure and Dry Juice they had been able to reach without working phones taking point behind and in front. “Of course you can ask me something,” Clear said. His voice, like his expression, was composed, if still a little shy. Mizuki liked the fact that now that Clear had shed the gas mask, he could hear Clear’s voice better--not to mention see his face.

(Koujaku and Aoba’s reactions to Clear’s face had been nothing short of priceless. They had all convened at what used to be the access route entrance to Platinum Jail, where deliveries had come in and out, and Mizuki had shown up with Clear in tow, sans his usual gas-mask. Mizuki had thought their eyes were going to roll right out of their skulls, and he actually reached over and made as if to push Koujaku’s jaw shut with his fingers before he got it together enough to greet Clear, with Aoba only narrowly following.

 _There is nothing strange about my face?_ Clear had asked as they got ready to go, again and again. _Really? It’s okay?_

 _Your face is perfectly normal, Clear. You have nothing to be ashamed of._ Mizuki would think of those words later that day and cringe, staring up at his ceiling in the middle of the night and wishing despairingly for some kind of respite. He’d wonder if things would have gone differently if he’d had the time to take Clear to bed after Aoba left, like they’d both clearly wanted to; if he’d taken Clear upstairs and taken off his apron, and kissed every inch of his body, and then made love to him—the idea would leave a sour taste in his mouth, heavy and metallic, the taste of wasted opportunity.

But at the time, he could barely stop himself from telling Clear that his was the most beautiful face Mizuki thought he’d ever seen. And the way Clear had smiled back at him and squeezed his hand was so distracting he could think of nothing else.)

Mizuki smiled again just thinking about it, and then realized Clear was still waiting for him to ask his question. “Yeah, uh,” he began articulately, and then rubbed at his face while he got his head together. “I was just wondering… Why did you used to call Aoba ‘Master’? And why don’t you anymore?”

Clear’s own smile faded a little at this. He looked away for the moment, picking nervously at the oversized labcoat he still wore. (Now that he knew the body that was under the lab coat, Mizuki couldn’t help but be extra disappointed at how much the labcoat hid, but while now was hardly the time for such considerations, Mizuki didn’t exactly have a great track record of managing to control his id.) “Koujaku-san didn’t like it when I called Aoba-san ‘Master,’” he said after a moment. “And Aoba-san did not seem to like it, either. And… I did not want to be disrespectful, so I stopped.”

“Ah,” said Mizuki, although that answer was only slightly clearer than mud. “Koujaku was jealous, huh.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Clear smiled as he said this. Mizuki thought he looked a little sad, and a trickle of unease went through him.

He shouldn’t ask. It was rude, and Clear was obviously a private person. ….He really shouldn’t ask. Now was hardly the time, and—and… “You have feelings for Aoba, huh,” Mizuki said softly. He tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was.

Clear looked at him. “Feelings for Aoba-san?” he repeated, and tilted his head. It reminded Mizuki of Ren, hilariously, that little head-tilt common to all dogs when they were intent on something. “Of course I have feelings for Aoba-san. He is my friend, and he woke me.”

“Woke you?” Mizuki repeated. The fact that the feeling of having a conversation he only half-understood was now familiar him was maybe a sad commentary on how frequently Clear still made little to no sense. But Clear was looking over at him still with that little half-cocked expression, as though trying to figure something out, and when he opened his mouth again, Mizuki forgot to bother with his confusion.

“Mizuki-san… Do you mean, romantic feelings?” Mizuki nodded, and tried to not hold his breath so obviously. Clear’s expression eased a little. “I guess I did,” he said after a moment. “But, Aoba-san did not return my feelings, and Koujaku-san loves him very much. They are very happy together, so I cannot be sad.”

Mizuki privately thought this was a bit much, but he could hardly argue with the sentiment. “That makes sense,” was what he said instead. “Was that why you started visiting me in the hospital? You were trying to spend more time around Aoba?”

Clear laughed, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. “Mizuki-sannnnnn, you make it sound so selfish!” He glanced ahead, visibly checking how far away the others were from them, but the walk into Platinum District was a long one and they hadn’t encountered any yokai yet, so after a moment, he kept talking. “Aoba-san and Koujaku-san felt guilty that you were in the hospital. Koujaku-san was very busy helping manage your Rib team while you were ill, and also rebuilding your team’s hangout, and Aoba-san wanted company to come see you. I think he did not feel comfortable coming alone, at first. So, I offered to come along.”

“I still have the jellyfish you gave me, you know,” said Mizuki, and felt his chest ache a little at the way Clear’s face lit up in response. “Hey, the—there’s a yellow scarf on one of them. Did you…?”

“It’s my scarf, yes.” Clear’s expression softened slightly. “I—I came to visit you alone one day, when Aoba-san was at Koujaku-san’s house. I didn’t want to bother them, and I thought that… you were all alone in the hospital with no one for company. You had to be lonely, too.”

Mizuki bit the inside of his mouth to strangle the totally unmanly noise he nearly made. “It was pretty rough,” he said, when Clear trailed off for a moment. “I didn’t really know what was going on about half the time, but it wasn’t fun.”

Clear shot him another one of those naked, aching looks that made Mizuki’s stomach twist inside-out. His gloveless hand reached over, shyly lacing his fingers together with Mizuki’s. It was such a sweet, innocent gesture that Mizuki felt his breath catch in his throat. He squeezed Clear’s hand encouragingly, wondering when the last time was that he did something so simple and romantic as holding hands. It wasn’t really his style.

Then again, neither was falling in love with a mysterious boy he barely knew.

“I came in on the day they were going to give you a skin-graft for your neck, to cover that tattoo Morphine gave you.” Clear looked forward again; Mizuki noticed distractedly that Aoba had stopped up ahead, and was conferring with Noiz about something, while Koujaku tried (and failed) not to stand around and look sulky. They walked a little slower, so as to not catch up too quickly. “I wanted to give you the scarf for your neck, but you weren’t even in your room when I stopped by; you were in surgery. So, I left it for you the only way I could think of.”

Mizuki was still trying to come up with an intelligent response to this when a voice from up ahead broke in. “Hey,” said Koujaku, walking towards the two of them. “Noiz thinks he found something on his…” He broke off, glancing at Clear and Mizuki’s joined hands in surprise. Clear tried to pull his hand away, but Mizuki held tight, squeezing Clear’s hand again reassuringly, and got a squeeze in return for his pains.

“Found something on his what, Koujaku?” Mizuki let an edge creep into his voice, and Koujaku’s eyebrows went up.

“On his Coil,” he said, and grinned slightly at Mizuki, before quickly growing more serious again. “He found a workaround past the electrical interference, and he’s picking up some signals from the research district of Platinum Jail.”

“Yeah?” said Mizuki, with real interest this time. Koujaku obviously wasn’t going to start anything right now, and Clear seemed more at ease. They hurried to join Aoba and Noiz, Mizuki peering mistrustfully over Noiz’s shoulder to look at the holographic screen he was projecting over his wrist.

“There’s a beacon coming from this district,” said Noiz, gesturing at a spot on the map hologram. “It’s about two miles north of here, and it’s a steady signal.”

“What kind of beacon?” asked Aoba, wrinkling his nose.

“And why should we trust it?” added Koujaku sourly.

“We shouldn’t trust it,” said Clear, before Noiz could answer. Mizuki glanced at him in surprise. “It’s probably not dangerous itself, but…”

“Platinum Jail is supposed to be abandoned by Toue’s actual employees,” Noiz said, after giving everyone a look that clearly asked whether he was going to get a chance to actually answer Aoba’s question. “It’s not like Toue is going to be waiting there with a bunch of guards. But there might be defenses left from before the company withdrew from Midorijima, like guard robots, which is why we should be careful. Anyway, I’ve seen this type of signal before; it’s almost certainly some automated alarm that was meant to tell the researchers that something was not right.”

“Like a gas spill,” said Mizuki, realization dawning. Noiz nodded. “Shit,” said Mizuki. “Now I wish we’d brought gas masks.”

“You can wear mine if you need to!” Clear said, eyes wide. “I brought it anyway, in case I needed it.”

“Well, if anybody smells anything weird, we’ll stop,” said Aoba reasonably. “And then one of us can keep going, wearing Clear’s gas-mask.”

“I can go too,” Clear added. “I don’t need the gas-mask to protect me.”

Mizuki bristled, but before he could voice a protest, Noiz said mildly, “I don’t think it’s going to come to that. If the researchers were studying gas or chemicals that were toxic, they’d probably have a store of gas-masks around, themselves, in case of emergency. So I’ll plug into the computer when we get there, and find the storehouse location.”

This was such a reasonable plan of action that no one, not even Mizuki, could find any real flaw with it, and they moved forward again, Mizuki and Clear walking clumped together with the others now. Koujaku and Mizuki’s Rib mates did point patrol, drawing their net tighter around Mizuki’s group.

Ten minutes further on, another yokai appeared, and this time Mizuki recognized the nightmare right off the bat: Tsuchigomo, the chimera-like monster with the body of a tiger, limbs of a spider, and face of an angry demon. Tsuchigomo had featured in an old-school monster movie his Rib team had watched as a group recently, going en masse to a late-night feature. It hulked over them now with a shrill scream, a hundred times more terrible in person than it had been on-screen, reeking of the dead bodies it was supposed to eat and brandishing one of its awful pincers like a lance. Mizuki noted grimly that it took several blows of their weapons to make the phantom dissipate this time, instead of the single strike that had always done the job previously. And what was worse, the damn thing left a mess behind.

Mizuki looked at the black goo that stuck to his metal spar like asphalt. His lip curled as he got a whiff of the smell, like rotting fish, or decaying plant matter. “Gross,” said Aoba, appearing at Mizuki’s shoulder to peer closer at the substance on Mizuki’s weapon. “It’s got… bits in it, or something.”

“Looks like sand,” Noiz said dispassionately. “Didn’t they always just blow away like dust before?” Mizuki had noticed (much to his disgruntlement) that while Noiz seemed uninterested in everything, he didn’t seem to miss much. He’d spotted the yokai before any of them, and he knew how to throw a punch and aim a rock, at least. Mizuki still didn’t care for the little shit, but at least he wasn’t useless.

“The research facility is just up ahead,” said Clear, who stood at the mouth of an access alley maybe thirty meters up ahead. “I can see it!” He turned around, waiting for the others to reach his position. His normally cheerful demeanor had grown serious, his face just a little tight. Mizuki remembered the spectre of Clear’s grandfather in the North District, and hoped, for Clear’s sake, that they wouldn’t see anything of the sort again today.

“Should we start looking for those gas-masks now?” Koujaku asked, glancing from Noiz to Aoba. The hand on the hilt of his sword twitched; Mizuki was willing to bet solid money that Koujaku was inches from just putting Aoba over his shoulder and carrying him out of the range of any poison gas, protestations be damned.

(Now that Mizuki knew they were dating, he had to wonder how in the hell he’d _ever_ missed the fact that Koujaku was over the moon about their friend. He’d caught those little looks Koujaku cast Aoba whenever he thought Aoba wasn’t paying attention, and he recognized them from countless nights out as a group, always with that same expression: like Aoba was utterly out of reach, as bright and precious and unattainable as one of the stars in the sky.)

“I cannot smell anything dangerous,” Clear said to Koujaku. “But the alarm is very loud.”

“What alarm?” Mizuki asked—or started to, because as soon as he asked, he thought he could hear it: the faint but piercing klaxon of a building alarm. “Damn, you can hear that?”

Clear glanced at him, face pinkening, and a bashful smile appeared. “I have excellent hearing, Mizuki-san,” he said seriously. “I think it goes hand-in-hand with my singing.”

“No kidding,” said Mizuki, and without even thinking he grabbed for Clear’s hand again and squeezed it. He was so busy being blinded by the smile he got in return that he almost didn’t notice the dirty look that Noiz shot him.

Almost. _Suck it,_ he thought, more than a little smug.

He didn’t have much time to enjoy the feeling, though. The research facility loomed up ahead of them, just as Clear had said, a white monolithic building like something out of a 1950s sci-fi novel, all shiny plastic and smooth glass exterior. It was virtually undamaged, which Mizuki could kind of understand, considering how far away from the main body of Platinum Jail it was, but when they got to the huge front doors—white metal, which was so classically Toue that Mizuki wanted to vomit a little in his mouth—they were locked.

“Shit,” said Aoba, dismayed.

“I think I can dismantle the alarm and the locking mechanism,” Noiz said, and got out his Coil again. Mizuki looked around, squinting. There was a window close to the front door, about waist-height, maybe half a meter wide and one-and-a-half tall. On the ground maybe twelve meters from it was a chunk of rock about the size of Mizuki’s forearm, broken off from some other building during the destruction of Oval Tower and the chaos afterwards, probably. Mizuki set his metal spar down and went over to the rock, hefting it in both hands. “Mizuki, what are you—”

 _CRASH!_ The sound of breaking glass cut off the rest of Aoba’s question, and Mizuki turned his head and spat. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and then grinned at Clear and Aoba’s shocked faces. “Burglary was the _first_ felony I got tried for,” he remarked, and then draped his jacket on the edges of the broken glass jutting out of the window, gripped the sill tight, and hauled himself inside.

Inside, the alarm was even louder than before, and Mizuki winced at the way it went through his ears. He stood up, yanking his jacket off the sill, and glanced quickly around. He found the lock for the front door within moments—it was literally just a metal bar shoved into a slot, and once he pulled it back the door opened easily. “Pretty shit security,” he offered, as first Koujaku and then the others filed inside. He ducked outside just long enough to retrieve his metal spar and then came back in.

“You enjoyed that way too much,” Koujaku said, grinning.

“You’re just pissed you didn’t do it first so you could show off for Aoba,” Mizuki shot back. Aoba took this opportunity to punch him in the arm. “Ow!”

“Mizuki-san, are you hurt?” Clear asked anxiously. “You could have cut yourself!”

“I’m fine, baby,” Mizuki said, dropping his voice and turning towards Clear. He smiled reassuringly, and extended both arms to show they were undamaged. “See?”

“Now who’s showing off?” Noiz remarked to seemingly no one.

“Yeah, can you save it?” Aoba said. “Noiz, can you get into one of the computers now we’re inside?”

“Yeah, I should be able to.” Noiz walked over to the wall, and pulled open a panel that looked exactly like every other panel on the wall, as far as Mizuki could tell, save for the fact that behind it squatted a nest of buttons and wires and electronic ports that might as well have been in ancient Sumerian for how much sense they made to Mizuki. Noiz dug a cord out of his pocket and held up his Coil, attaching one end of the wire to his own device and plugging the other end into one of the wall outlets. Immediately, data popped up into the holographic screen of Noiz’s Coil, scrolling rapidly across the interface, too fast for anyone to read.

Except Noiz, apparently. “I’m in,” he said after a moment, eyes never leaving the screen. “The security system is active… and now deactivated.” The alarm went blessedly silent, and everyone groaned in relief. “According to this system, there’s no spill of any kind in the facility. No gas, no chemicals, nothing like that.”

“Then why was the alarm going off?” asked Aoba, brow furrowed.

“Perimeter breach, looks like,” said Noiz, fingers flying rapid-fire over the touch-screen in ront of him. 

“Us?” Koujaku frowned, and glanced down the hallways, but the building seemed as empty as a tomb, the high ceilings echoing their words back a little too loudly now that the klaxon had fallen silent.

“No, the breach was a few hours ago.” Noiz glanced up at Aoba, and his lip curled ever-so-slightly. “Security cameras are down, though. Someone disabled them, and it wasn’t me.”

“Whoever it is might still be here,” said Mizuki, glancing at the circle of faces. “We should see if we can find whoever it is before they sneak away.”

“Why do we care about some burglars, though?” Koujaku’s frown had deepened. “That’s not what we came out for today. Who cares if some residents are breaking into Toue’s old facilites?”

“Burglars wouldn’t break into this facility, though,” said Clear, surprising Mizuki. “It’s a research facility, and it’s not close to the rest of Platinum Jail, and not even labeled. The only people likely to be here are Toue’s researchers, or someone who knows what might be stored here.”

“Clear would know if anyone would,” said Aoba. “I think Mizuki’s right, we should try to find whoever broke in, or at least see if we can find what they were looking for. Maybe it’s related to the mass ...whatever it is, hallucinations.”

“Wait, what?” Mizuki stared at Clear, still a few beats back. “Why would you know, if anyone would?”

Clear blinked at him, clearly surprised by the question. “My grandfather was a researcher for Toue, like Aoba-san’s grandmother,” he said. “He quit before he raised me, but he talked about it sometimes.”

“Oh.” Duh. Mizuki wasn’t sure how he was supposed to have known that, but it didn’t seem like a surprise to anyone else, so he kept his mouth shut. That happened more often than he liked: everyone but him being up on some new development that had happened while he was in the hospital, unconscious and out of touch. It was a little like emerging from a time warp.

“Well, let’s get going, then,” said Koujaku, apparently convinced. “Be careful, everyone.” Noiz unplugged his Coil and shoved it back into his bag, and as they turned down the hall he glanced at Mizuki again, his face intent. There was something about his expression that made Mizuki feel like there was still something he was missing, something important.

He’d ask Clear about it later, he decided. When they had a few minutes to themselves, he’d take the time to ask Clear all those questions he’d been so curious about, really get to know him. And he’d show that boy just how much Mizuki had liked waking up to the sight of Clear’s bare-assed breakfast surprise in his kitchen…

The facility turned out to have been some kind of research center for psychoactive chemicals, as they had surmised earlier. Noiz pulled up a newly-acquired map of the complex on his Coil, and led them straight to a closet in which was stored a veritable army of gas-masks; they all grabbed one, and then continued on. Better safe than sorry, even if theoretically no gas or airborne toxin leaks had occurred.

In addition to being possibly dangerous, the place was fucking _huge_ : eight stories, taking up an entire city block, and filled with a labyrinthine mess of twisting hallways and spiral staircases. They passed vats of untouched chemicals, still sealed tightly in their metal containers, an incomprehensible read-out reloading constantly on the electrical faces of each massive tank; laboratories filled with complex equipment, Erlenmeyer flasks, delicate glass pipets, complex centrifuges, some still with substances in them waiting to be measured or tested; and worst of all, an entire wing devoted to what clearly used to be an animal-testing department, judging by the signs on the door.

Mizuki put his arm around Clear’s shoulders as they passed by the entrance, and Clear shrank against his side, averting his eyes from the ominous signs on the door. Mizuki forced himself to peer through the glass windows, while simultaneously hoping he wouldn’t see much of the horror that must lay inside.The smell was disgusting, even through the wall; clearly whatever animals had been kept here had not been taken with the researchers when they fled their facility, abandoned here to their fate.

“Do we have to go in there?” Aoba asked. “I don’t think I can handle it…” His face was white; Clear wasn’t doing much better. Mizuki and Koujaku exchanged a grim look.

The question hadn’t been directed at anyone in particular, but it was Noiz who answered. “The computer indicates that that wing is still sealed,” he said. His voice was mild, but his eyes were glued to the computer, his back to the darkened glass facade. “I think it’s safe to keep going.”

“Good,” muttered Koujaku, and Mizuki couldn’t help but agree. They hurried onwards down the hall, eager to leave the stench of death behind them.

They were so distracted that they almost missed it, when their break came. They’d stopped at the end of another branching hallway, taking a moment to collect themselves as Noiz checked his map to see what section they were headed into next. Clear had pressed himself in close, hip against Mizuki’s stomach, cheek on Mizuki’s shoulder, and Aoba was all but glued to Koujaku in the same fashion, both clearly still shaken. Mizuki rubbed a hand down Clear’s spine comfortingly, his metal spar resting against the wall for the time being in favor of twining the fingers of his other hand with Clear’s. He was staring absently at the wall, looking at nothing in particular, and then, out of the corner of his eye: movement. Something black and wriggling at the end of the hall, vanishing within seconds around the corner.

“What’s that?” he said, straightening.

“What was what?” Aoba and Clear both stepped back, glancing around, but Koujaku and Noiz were looking at Mizuki.

“I saw something,” Mizuki said. “It looked like…” He hesitated, tilting his head slightly as some memory nagged at him. “Like a snake,” he said after a moment. “It went around the corner.”

“A snake?” Clear repeated in dismay, eyes wide. “Ahhhh, that’s not—I don’t like snakes…”

Aoba took a few nervous steps back, putting Mizuki in mind of a pony shying from a loud noise. His hand went to his bag; belatedly, Mizuki remembered that Ren was tucked away for safe keeping in there. “Maybe one of the animals got out of containment?” he suggested.

“Maybe,” said Mizuki. “But…” He was distracted; the wriggling tail had shaken something loose in his memory. What _was_ it? Where had he seen that before? Without actively thinking about it he grabbed up his metal spar and had taken off down the hallway, following his hunch.

“Mizuki-san!” “Mizuki, what are you doing?” Clear and Koujaku called after him, but Mizuki sped up. Something wasn’t right.

He got to the end of the corridor just in time to fling himself around the corner and spot the animal again. There it was, at the end of another hall: huge and black and scaly. The creature twisted around, looking straight at him, and the sight of its unnatural blue eyes sent a shock of recognition down Mizuki’s spine. “You!” he shouted.

The creature hissed, hoisting itself menacingly up on its coils, as if preparing to strike. Mizuki snarled and lifted his metal spar; behind him Koujaku caught up to him, his sword already drawn.

“Don’t provoke it!” Koujaku cried. “Let it go!”

“It’s not an animal, it’s an All-mate!” Mizuki snapped. At the end of the hall, the snake hissed again, and then turned and surged down the tile in the other direction, its sinuous folds bunching and pushing it swiftly along the floor. “Follow it, don’t let it get away!”

“What? Whose All-mate?” Koujaku was shouting questions at him, and Mizuki could hear the others coming fast behind him, but Mizuki’s attention was on the fleeing snake. He tore down the hall after the creature, his blood pounding in his ears, gripping his length of steel tightly. The hallway branched again, and Mizuki skidded around the corner, only to come face-to-face with a gigantic, night-dark lion. The creature bared huge canines as Mizuki appeared, accompanied by a warning growl as its blue cat-eyes dilated.

“Shit,” said Mizuki. Koujaku came barreling around the corner after him, Aoba and Clear and Noiz close on his heels, and one by one they all froze, staring at the huge predator.

“Is that an All-mate, too?” Koujaku asked. His voice was tight; out of the corner of his eye Mizuki could see that his friend’s odachi was raised, and that Koujaku had dropped into a warrior’s stance.

“Yes, it is,” said someone, a man’s voice that came from behind the lion. “Hello again, Aoba-san, Mizuki-san.” The owner of the voice appeared a moment later, wearing the same sharp-lapelled suit and wire-frame glasses as the last time Mizuki saw him, smiling his hollow little smile. Even though Mizuki had already known who it was, the sight of him still sent a shock of fury down his spine, like someone had poured scalding tea down his back.

“Virus!” said Aoba in surprise. Virus tipped his head in acknowledgment, and another figure stepped out of the darkened hallway, settling a hand on top of the lion’s huge head. “And Trip! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Yahoo, Aoba,” said Trip. He was as tall and burly as Mizuki remembered, barely fitting into his tailored suit, and while he wore a perfectly normal-seeming smile, there was something about him that spoke of violence—a blunt weapon just waiting to be put to use. Mizuki’s skin crawled, and his momentary paralysis broke.

“You sons of bitches!” he snarled, and threw out an arm to stop Aoba as he started forward. “Don’t you talk to my friends! Are you following us? What do you want?”

“Mizuki, what—”

“They’re the heads of Morphine,” Mizuki said sharply, as Aoba started to protest. “These are the men who tricked me and my team into letting ourselves get fucking _brainwashed_.”

He’d forgotten all about them. Or, not forgotten, but put deliberately from his mind, and with the amount of other things he’d had to deal with since waking up in the hospital—recovery of his wasted limbs and addled brain, reconnecting with his team, putting his life back together—the topic had never come up.

“Is that true?” Aoba asked, after a moment. He took a step forward, his face pale, wearing an expression like he’d been slapped. It took Mizuki a moment to remember that Aoba had been good friends with these two for a long time, since long before they became Yakuza. _Like snakes in the grass,_ Mizuki thought darkly.

Neither of the Yakuza answered immediately. The lion growled again, glancing up at Trip as though for some signal of what to do, but Trip was looking at Virus, who appeared to be thinking. Mizuki heard a faint rustling sound, so soft as to be barely discernible, and then noticed a black band by Virus’s feet, there and then gone as the snake slithered out of sight again.

Virus sighed. “I must admit, Mizuki-san,” he said, “I’m surprised. I would have thought you’d have warned Aoba-san and your other friends about us as soon as you woke up.”

“Fuck you,” said Mizuki. He gritted his teeth. Virus smiled again, that faint, infuriating smile.

“So nasty,” observed Trip. “But you were the one so desperate for a fix to your problem that you were willing to convince your whole team to come with us, weren’t you? So how can you lay all the blame on us?”

“Quit avoiding the subject,” said Koujaku, breaking in with a snarl. Something about his voice made Mizuki’s head turn, and he was startled to see that Koujaku looked—bigger, somehow, his eyes dark with barely-controlled anger. “If you’re with Morphine, then you’re our enemies!”

“Koujaku…” Aoba put a hand on Koujaku’s shoulder, looking anxious.

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” said Virus agreeably. “But Morphine is gone now. When Toue and his company left, all that went away.”

“We’re not doing business right now, anyway,” Trip added. “But maybe it’s lucky we ran into you, Aoba-san.”

“You stay away from Aoba—” “—Don’t touch Aoba-san!” “Back off, you bastards!” Suddenly Clear was at Mizuki’s side too, his hands bunched into fists. Noiz was the only one who didn’t speak, but his hands were raised, too, his expression cold.

Virus laughed. “You have such good friends, Aoba-san,” he said, almost merry.

“Stop talking,” snapped Mizuki, and hefted his spar. The lion at Trip’s side growled, and Virus’ flat eyes shifted to Mizuki, some of the humor leaking out of his face.

“I could do that,” Virus said, voice quiet. “But, didn’t you come here to find out why everyone is having these hallucinations?” At the quiet question, Mizuki went cold.

“How would you know that?” asked Noiz. He tilted his head slightly. “And why should we trust anything you say, anyway?”

“Why else would you be here?” said Virus, rhetorically. “But as for the second question… well, you’ll have to judge for yourself. Perhaps you will have better luck than we have had.”

“You wanted to know why we were here at the same time you are,” Trip said. “We’ll show you.” And without waiting for an answer, they turned simultaneously and headed swiftly down the hall, the snake and the huge lion All-mate following speedily in their wake.

“Wait! Where are you—Fuck!” Koujaku took a step after them and then faltered, glancing at Mizuki, but Aoba had already started running after the Yakuza. “AOBA, WAIT!”

“Come on! We have to follow them!” Aoba ran ahead without looking back, and Mizuki and the others followed, Mizuki and Koujaku cursing under their breath as they gave chase. Clear hurried alongside Mizuki, and the sound of their footsteps echoed off the tomb-like walls of the research facility, huge and hollow.

“Why the fuck are we chasing after these shitbags, again?” Mizuki huffed under his breath. “This is such a fucking bad idea—”

“Because you always want to know where the spider in the room is, once you realize it’s there,” said Noiz unexpectedly, running beside him on Mizuki’s other side. Mizuki let out a bark of laughter, and they kept running.

He just hoped that whatever waited for them ahead, they wouldn’t wind up regretting finding it. But he had a feeling that was already a foregone conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsuchigomo is another yokai that you can find some info about [here](http://yokai.com/tsuchigumo/); the appearance in the story is one of the variants of his appearance I have come across.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery of what has been causing the mass hallucinations is finally revealed; so is other, more personal information. Mizuki isn't happy about any of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful and talented joannaestep has made another illustration for this chapter, which you can find [here](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/post/80851902159/chapter-6-of-fever-is-up-heres-my-drawing-for) on tumblr, or see at the end of this section! Thanks as always go to my wonderful beta, circ_bamboo, without whom all of my writing would be the poorer. 
> 
> **Warning:** This chapter in particular contains some disturbing imagery.

When the chase ended, they had followed Virus and Trip from the research facility to another building just three blocks away—an old residential building of some type, from the look of the exterior anyway. The entire building was deserted, save for the apartment on the very top floor. They reached the uppermost landing, and stopped there, single-file in the cramped stairwell, looking uneasily at each other.

“I’m still waiting for a goddamn explanation,” said Mizuki loudly. From the top of the steps, Virus looked back down at him, and gave him that perfunctory smile again.

“No patience at all,” he said. “Ah, well. In here.” He turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, letting himself in. Trip followed, and in his wake came Aoba, Koujaku, Mizuki, Clear, and Noiz.

Mizuki looked around quickly as they got into the room, his body tense, fully expecting another trap of some sort, no matter what these lying snakes said they were here to show them. He took a few steps inside, and the violent negative reaction he suffered was so strong that it blocked out every other sensation for a few moments.

They were in a hospital of some kind. Or at least, they were in a medical facility; Mizuki immediately recognized some of the squat machines that lined the wall, this one for measuring heart rate, that one a set-up for an IV line. An area at the end of the room was cordoned off by a white curtain, and sunlight streamed in from the two windows along one wall. The cheery effect was diminished somewhat by the centimeter-thick metal bars molded into the window frames, rectangles intersected by two sets of crosses each.

“What the hell is this place?” Mizuki demanded. Visions of his own prolonged stay in Midorijima General Hospital flashed behind his eyes, and he shoved them away with an effort.

Virus glanced at him, eyebrows ever-so-slightly raised. “It used to be a care facility,” he said mildly. “For some of Toue’s research subjects. Only subjects whose condition had deteriorated but were still of some research value wound up here. Otherwise they would simply be returned to the Old Resident District to fend for themselves.”

“That’s horrific,” said Koujaku. His voice was still dark; lined up against the wall with the sunlight from the window streaming in, Mizuki suddenly noticed that the tips of Koujaku’s hair had started to turn reddish, as though dipped in paint. _What in the hell…?_ Again Aoba reached out, resting a hand on Koujaku’s shoulder, and Mizuki watched as Koujaku visibly relaxed, some of the harshness leaving his features as he glanced at Aoba.

“You asked for an explanation, not a polite fantasy,” said Virus. “You—” He trailed off as the black snake that had paced him all the way here wound around his feet, hissing in agitation that was obvious even to Mizuki. Virus bent, and his All-mate slithered up to him, wending up his arms to wrap around his shoulders as he stood up again. “Hersha is nervous,” he said, looking at Trip with a troubled expression.

“Berta wouldn’t even come in,” Trip said. He glanced at the end of the room, where the white curtain sectioned off the last quarter; Mizuki suddenly had a bad taste in his mouth. Anything that could make an All-mate that size nervous… At his side, Clear folded his arms over his chest, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot. Mizuki reached out to touch Clear’s arm reassuringly.

“Stop with the dog and pony show,” said Noiz, stepping forward. “What are you hiding back there? Why did you bring us here?”

At the question, Trip’s mouth thinned, lips pursed together disapprovingly. Or maybe it was just anxiety; Mizuki had never taken Sociopath Body Language 101. “You can explain,” Trip said to Virus, and stalked to the end of the room, grabbing the white curtain and pulling it aside.

There was a collective intake of breath, and then Mizuki found himself staring at a reclined hospital bed. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t the used-up looking young man prone in bed before them. He was unconscious, and his shoulder-length black hair was lank, laying listlessly against his face and neck. His pallid complexion spoke of long years indoors, his face sunken, and if it weren’t for the shallow rise and fall of his chest Mizuki would have thought him dead.

“You’re telling me this poor bastard is the reason half the island is infested with yokai,” Mizuki said after a few moments of dead silence. “Sure. He’s not even awake! Why did we even bother to believe you.” He didn’t try to keep the heat from his voice, and he gritted his teeth when Virus glanced his way again, cool contempt in his eyes.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t put you through the window for keeping this boy prisoner here,” said Koujaku.

“Koujaku,” began Aoba, but then Virus let out a laugh, short and devoid of humor.

“Sei-san does not look this way because of us,” Trip said. “He has been very ill for a long while now. Toue-san pushed him too hard. Such a shame.”

“Yes,” said Virus, and now his expression was fixed disconcertingly on Aoba. Aoba, Mizuki now realized, was staring at the pitiful figure of Sei. He looked like he was struggling with something, face too pale and eyes too wide. The bad feeling in the pit of Mizuki’s stomach intensified. “Do you recognize him, Aoba-san?”

“Why should he?” demanded Koujaku.

“Because he is your brother, Aoba-san,” said Virus.

Mizuki stared. Beside him, he heard a gasp, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw Clear’s hands rise to cover his mouth. “Bullshit,” Mizuki snapped.

“You do not have to believe it,” Virus said placidly. “Aoba-san has the power to find out for himself if what I say is true.” He stood in place calmly enough, but something about the way his eyes lingered on Sei’s still form made Mizuki’s skin crawl.

Virus was standing at the opposite end of the room from Sei, Mizuki noted abruptly. And Trip had returned to Virus’ side, his arms crossed over his burly chest, also watching Sei. They had put as much distance between themselves and the sick-bed as they could while still being in the room.

As though they were afraid of the person who lay there.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” Aoba said after a moment. He ripped his eyes away from the sight of his supposed brother, glaring at the Yakuza. “So talk.”

Virus exhaled through his nose. His snake bumped the back of his hand with its massive head, body still draped around Virus’ shoulders, and Virus reached up distractedly to stroke his fingers over the scaly skull. “Sei-san has the inverse of Aoba’s power,” he said after a moment. “It is why Toue found him so useful, and asked so much of him. Aoba can destroy, while Sei creates. Aoba’s power is manifested in his voice, while Sei-san’s power is… was in his eyes.”

“Sei-san can create multiple copies of his own consciousness,” said Trip. He glanced at Noiz, for some reason. “Some of them were very useful, and provided a lot of data for Toue’s research into controlling people’s minds. Some of them were just useful as a means for Toue to make money, and distract the population.” Trip smiled, wide and dangerous. “Like Usui.”

Noiz glared at him, but something was off in his expression. “Noiz-san,” Clear said hesitantly, speaking for the first time since coming upstairs, “Didn’t you say that Usui vanished from Rhyme around the time Oval Tower collapsed?”

“Yeah,” said Noiz after a moment. His eyes flickered back over to Sei’s still body. “It did.” 

“Sei-san has been getting sicker and sicker for some time now, despite several attempts at treatment,” said Trip. “So Toue sped up his plans to try to take over Midorijima completely.”

“He knew he wouldn’t be able to complete everything without Sei-san,” Virus said. “Unless he was able to find Sei-san’s brother, of course. But he underestimated Aoba-san, and his plans did not succeed.”

“All of Sei-san’s expanded consciousnesses vanished when Oval Tower collapsed,” said Trip. “He was unconscious when we found him, already in a comatose state.” He glanced over at Noiz, smirking a little. “That was why Usui vanished when Oval Tower collapsed, and why Usui was acting so erratic in the weeks leading up to it.”

Noiz didn’t respond, only shifted his weight a little, arms still crossed over his chest. Mizuki suffered a moment of sympathy for the kid that made him wonder what the hell the world was coming to, and he pushed the thought away.

“So you saved him,” said Mizuki sarcastically. “Out of the goodness of your heart.”

Virus smiled, the way a snake might smile at a mongoose, the lips doing nothing more than hiding the fangs. “Of course not,” he said. “We do only what we think is interesting. Sei-san is almost as interesting as Aoba-san.” His smile faded. “But our attempts to awaken him backfired.”

Premonition prickled up Mizuki’s spine at that. From the expressions on the others’ faces, everyone else was having the same realization. “What did you give him?” demanded Aoba.

Virus bowed his head. “Psychoactive medication that was intended to stimulate dormant neurons, to help him recover,” he said. “But we did not fully investigate what other treatments had already been done on Sei-san, and…”

“The yokai started appearing later that day,” Trip said when Virus trailed off. “We didn’t make the connection right away, but—” He broke off; the look he and Virus exchanged was grim, and _that_ set Mizuki’s skin to crawling again.

“Sei-san made his unhappiness clear to us,” Virus said, almost delicately. “But he was already beyond our help. When you found us today, we were looking for something in that facility that might be able to alleviate his condition.”

“So Sei-san is causing these hallucinations?” Clear took a step forward, his expression as troubled as his voice. “He must be in a lot of pain, to make such frightening monsters. It’s cruel of you to keep him like this, isn’t it?”

“We believe he is behind them, yes,” said Virus after a moment. He gazed with obvious interest at Clear, and after a few moments of it Mizuki reached over and put his arm meaningfully around Clear’s shoulders. Virus smiled. “It matches what we know of his abilities, and… when we tried certain other stimulations, the response was unmistakable.”

“Response?” repeated Mizuki darkly. He narrowed his eyes, not liking the way Virus was still looking at Clear.

“Yes,” said Trip unhelpfully. Now he was staring at Mizuki and Clear too, as though he hadn’t really noticed Clear until just now. “Tell me, how did you end up with one of Toue-san’s Alpha series? He seems to have imprinted on you very strongly.”

Beside him, Clear stiffened. “What?” Mizuki stared at Trip as though he’d sprouted a second head; at the same time, he became abruptly aware of the fact that Aoba and Koujaku were giving each other worried looks, before both of them looked over at Mizuki. “What are you talking about? Alpha series? The fuck?” Mizuki glanced around the room, only to discover that literally everyone was staring at him now.

Everyone, that is, except Clear.

Dread formed a heavy knot in his chest, tightening ominously as the silence stretched out. “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” he said loudly.

Virus pushed his glasses up his nose. “How interesting,” he said. “The Alpha series was the first in a line of humanoid robots created by Toue, Inc. Only three of the Alphas were ever made; they were powerful, but difficult and expensive to create. When one of the three successful models was declared unstable and defective, Toue moved on to different prototypes, but the two remaining Alphas were some of his most prized creations, and key in his plan to control the humans of Midorijima.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” demanded Mizuki heatedly. He glanced down at Clear again, who was finally looking back at him. The look on his face arrested the next words on his lips, and he felt his mouth go dry. “Clear?”

“Mizuki-san…” Clear glanced helplessly at Aoba, then back to Mizuki. “I thought you knew,” he said weakly. He clasped his hands together, looking as though he were trying to shrink in on himself. “When you said that I am fine—I thought Aoba-san told you…”

“Clear, no,” said Aoba, gone white in the face. “I wouldn’t—it wasn’t my place to say anything! I thought—when I came over and you had your mask off, I thought _you_ had told him!”

“Told me what? Clear!” Mizuki took a step back, staring pleadingly at Clear now. This couldn’t be true. Virus and Trip couldn’t be trusted; they were Toue, they were with Morphine, they—

“I am a synthetic humanoid, Mizuki-san,” said Clear. His voice was very small. “A robot.”

It was like the world had dropped out from under him. Mizuki stared at Clear, an odd ringing in his ears starting, blocking out everything in the room. His skin went cold all over, humping up into painful gooseflesh immediately. “You’re a robot,” Mizuki repeated. His own voice sounded like a stranger’s. “But you’re… you…”

“I thought you knew,” Clear said again, wretchedly.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know when nobody bothered to tell me?” Mizuki demanded, his voice sharp and unsteady. Clear winced as though he’d been struck, and Mizuki backed away, not trusting himself in that moment. “Whatever,” he said forcefully. “That’s, that’s not important right now.”

“Mizuki-san,” Clear began, reaching out to him, but Mizuki jerked his arm away.

“You can tell me all about your simulated hurt feelings later, when we’re done with the Yakuza trash twins,” Mizuki said roughly. The stricken look on Clear’s face was too much for him to look at, and Mizuki averted his eyes, glaring instead at Virus and Trip, who were looking on with entirely too much enjoyment. “ _Well?_ ”

“Oh no, don’t stop on our account,” said Virus, eyes wide with faux-innocence. “The trash twins would never dream of interrupting your heart-to-heart.”

“Save it,” said Noiz, of all people. Mizuki felt a rush of gratitude, and tried not to hold it against the kid. “Clear asked a question, you should answer it. If Sei is in such pain that he’s causing these freaky hallucinations, why didn’t you just kill him? No offense,” he added, glancing at Aoba, who looked close to apoplectic; whether it was Virus & Trip that Aoba was furious at, or Mizuki, it was anyone’s guess. “But it seems cruel _and_ pointless to keep Sei alive if he’s in this state.”

Trip opened his mouth to answer, but Aoba got there first. “Fuck all of you,” he said shakily, in apparent answer to Mizuki’s unspoken question. “How dare you treat him like this? He’s a person, not a _tool_. And so is Clear,” he added, shooting a venomous look in Mizuki’s direction. Mizuki’s stomach clenched, but he gritted his teeth and just met Aoba’s look with a stony one of his own. Aoba’s nostrils flared, and he looked away again, moving towards the bed where Sei lay prone. “Koujaku, Clear, come help me, please—”

“Aoba-san, you should not try to move him—” Virus began, but Aoba turned on him with such violence in his face that Virus actually took a step back.

“Shut. Up,” Aoba spat. “Just stop talking!” His eyes burned gold, like molten metal, and even though the order hadn’t been directed at him, Mizuki felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, all his words drying up. He saw Virus and Trip stagger, as though physically struck, and Virus’ hand went to his mouth, as though to check it was still there.

It wasn’t the first time Mizuki had gotten a taste of Aoba’s power—far from it—but this sudden onslaught was different than the mental invasion he’d suffered before. Mizuki swallowed, what felt like all the blood in his body rushing to his face, cheeks burning. _Fuck_ , he thought dizzily.

Aoba took a deep breath, visibly mastering himself. Koujaku hovered at his side, an armed and worried presence seemingly unfazed by whatever Aoba had just done. “Clear, come here please,” Aoba said again. Clear went immediately, his eyes wide, and together the three of them approached the unmoving figure in the hospital bed. 

Mizuki glanced at Noiz, who lingered at the entrance to the room with Mizuki. Noiz’s face was unreadable, and so Mizuki looked back at the tableau by Sei’s bedside. Aoba had crouched by Sei’s bedside, trying to peer into his face to see if he could get some kind of response. But Sei didn’t so much as twitch a finger, even when Aoba called his name, and after a moment Aoba stood up again.

“I’m gonna try to Scrap him,” Aoba said finally. “If he really is my brother, or he really is causing these hallucinations… I should be able to tell.” He was trying his best to sound confident, but Mizuki knew Aoba well enough to recognize the tightness in his eyes, the rigid way he was holding his shoulders.

It was a mark of how bad things were that not even Koujaku tried to tell him no. Aoba glanced once more around the room; his eyes rested only for one long moment on Mizuki—whether in anger or in anxiety, Mizuki was unable to tell—and then he bent over Sei’s still figure again. He reached out with both hands, fingers splayed, touching his fingertips delicately to Sei’s temples.

Mizuki recalled the last time he’d seen Aoba do this, and he suffered an involuntary shudder: _Aoba, running towards him and shouting, his eyes burning gold as Mizuki started to press the tip of his knife against Tae’s throat, as though watching someone else control his hands…_ The echo of pain burst inside his skull: the neural impression of the moment his mind snapped, and he had tumbled into darkness. He turned quickly away, heedless of the way that Noiz and Clear glanced over at him. He wished, abruptly, that he hadn’t come along at all, but it was much too late for that.

Several tense seconds passed, in which the only sound was Aoba’s labored breathing. And then, abruptly, total chaos erupted.

Aoba screamed, thin and frightened, and staggered back from Sei’s bed. “Aoba!” Koujaku cried, and lunged to catch him before he could fall; Mizuki looked up in time to catch the sheer terror in Aoba’s eyes, his face gone white as paper. In the split-second following, a hollow _thump_ sound made Mizuki stagger, sounding like something huge had just slammed into the wall outside in the hallway, followed almost immediately by an animal snarling—either in anger or in fear, Mizuki couldn’t tell.

“Berta!” Trip cried, and started for the exit, but he’d taken just three steps when the door moved of its own accord. It swung shut as Trip lunged for the handle, slamming into its frame with the sound of a huge metal gong. Trip grabbed the handle, trying madly to wrest it open, but it wouldn’t budge even an inch. Through the wall came another scream, loud and primal, and then the sounds of snarling from more than one source. “Berta, I’m coming!” Trip yelled, and then jerked back from the door as something massive slammed into it from the other side.

“Leave him!” snapped Virus. “We have to get out of here!” It was enough to snap everyone else out of their fright, and then everyone spoke up at once.

“It’s the yokai,” said Koujaku; one arm was around Aoba’s waist, the other reaching to draw his odachi again.

“We have to go,” said Aoba wildly, struggling upright in Koujaku’s arms. “We have to go, now, Sei is—he’s calling them, he’s going to trap us here like rats in a barrel, we have to get out!!” At that moment, the electric lights overhead flickered, like lamps in a strong wind, and then went out. The daylight streaming in through the window seemed to dim, as though a shadow were passing over the glass.

“What…” began Mizuki, and then gasped. “Holy fuck!” On the wall opposite the darkening windows, a half-dozen slits of red like cats’ eyes appeared in the darkness, blinking and then dilating, the pupils roaming to and fro as though searching for a target. Mizuki backed up involuntarily, the backs of his legs bumping into one of the spindly metal chairs arrayed around the room.

“Is there another way out?” Clear asked. He backed away from Sei, eyes darting between the bed and the shaking door, the sounds of snarling and fighting from the hallway growing louder. Mizuki looked up and down the room, but the door they’d come in was the only way out.

Whatever this was, whoever this hallucination this belonged to, Mizuki wanted no part of it. And he had the very bad feeling that hallucination or no, if the phantasms touched them, he’d definitely, _definitely_ feel it.

“Look out!” shouted Koujaku. Mizuki looked up in time to see a black, shapeless blob peel out from the wall. The blob dilated, amoeboid and alien, erupting outward as everyone screamed and backed away, putting as much space between them and the spectre as possible.The blob coalesced into something more solid, a figure that reared up on newly-formed stumpy legs and bared a ghoulish, dripping mouth at them—no teeth, just an ill-formed hole, like it was made of wet mud. It loomed over Koujaku and Aoba with a roar, seven feet of nightmare fuel; the thing’s neck elongated as it lunged at them like some kind of snake—

Koujaku snarled and swung his odachi, shoving himself in front of Aoba even as Clear grabbed Aoba to drag him to safety. Koujaku slashed at the thing’s face, and Mizuki watched in fascination and horror as a stump of pure muck was sliced cleanly in half by the razor-sharp blade, only to re-form almost instantly. “Koujaku!” Aoba cried.

Trip pulled a gun out of his jacket, and Virus lunged to stop him too late as he fired a round at the ghoul. The bullet cut right through the muck, clanging loudly as it ricocheted off the metal walls of the room. There were several _thumps_ as everyone dove for the floor at the same time, and then the sound of shattering glass as the bullet found the window.

The sound rang a bell in Mizuki’s head. Fuck this. “Clear! Noiz!” Mizuki yelled, and their heads popped up. “Help me lift the table!” He scrambled to his feet and ran to the edge of the room lined with windows, and slid his fingers under the edge of the metal table pushed against the wall. It was easily the size of Mizuki lying down from end to end, and about four feet across. Clear and Noiz both darted over to help, even as Koujaku and Aoba hurried to put more distance between themselves and the monster. Clear went to the window while Noiz mirrored Mizuki’s position on the other side of the table. 

“Clear, what are you—” Mizuki began—and then watched in shock as Clear pried the metal bars that sectioned the window back and down, pulling them out of the way as though they were made of straw, and not stainless steel.

“Later, Mizuki-san,” Clear said. His voice was shaky, but he pried back the other two bars in under sixty seconds and then stepped back and out of the way. Mizuki didn’t know whether the lurch in his stomach at the sight of such incredible strength was disgust, pleasure, or some combination of the two.

Another howl came from out in the hallway, and then a pained yelp—and then the noises fell ominously silent; into the silence came another hoarse yell from Koujaku as the muck-monster lunged at him again.The hair on Mizuki’s skin crawled. “Lift it on three,” Noiz bit out. Mizuki nodded sharply. “One… two… _three!_ ”

“FUCK!” Mizuki gritted his teeth as they lifted in unison, swung the table between them to build up a little momentum, and then shoved it towards the window. The table went sailing through the glass, which shattered deafeningly, sending shards out into the open air as the table dropped out of sight.

Daylight flooded the room, brighter than Mizuki would have believed. Everyone gasped, Clear throwing an arm up to shield his eyes at the intensity of the light. A chorus of thin, inhuman screams filled the air, and then the red eyes in the wall and the titanic muck-monster both vanished, melting away in the daylight like shadows.

“We have to go down the side,” Mizuki said tersely. “Someone has to carry Sei.” Personally, he saw no reason why they shouldn’t leave Sei here to fend for his own crazy self, brother or no brother, but he knew he couldn’t say that out loud, not and keep Aoba as his friend. (He also thought it was perfectly fair to shoot Virus and Trip in the head and leave them here to rot, but they didn’t have the time for it, and frankly, Mizuki wasn’t sure even he could kill them in cold blood.)

“I can carry Sei-san,” Clear said immediately. He cast Mizuki another tight, longing look, but only for a single moment, and then he was bending over Sei’s still form, Aoba hurriedly helping to disentangle him from the mess of tubes and wires attached to his thin frame.

“We’re six stories up,” Virus pointed out, in what was an entirely too reasonable tone considering whatever it was that was now growling in that deep, hollow voice on the other side of the door. Trip was watching the door, his expression unreadable. 

_BAM!_ The door shook in its frame; everyone jumped. _BAM!_ came the noise again, and little cracks started to form in the wall around the door frame.

“Better hope you can climb, then,” snapped Mizuki. “Grab some blankets and start tearing them into strips! Hurry!”

Koujaku used his sword to help slice the blankets up, while Noiz threw some of the rugs over the edges of the broken glass, mirroring Mizuki’s trick from earlier. Mizuki couldn’t keep himself from glancing nervously at the door-frame, which was showing increasing signs of strain; the metal of the door puckered and dimpled, giving way to whatever was pushing from the other side. The nightmare in the hall roared again, deep and full-throated like a demon from the start of the world. “Now, now, now!”

Trip bent over the other remaining piece of heavy furniture in the room, which was a vanity table that was too big to move more than a few feet at a time, but that was all that was needed: he succeeded in shoving it against the straining door, and then backed away hurriedly. “You two get to go down in the middle, so I know you won’t get up to trouble,” Mizuki said, fixing both Virus and Trip with a glare that he hoped look as poisonous as he was feeling at the moment. “Koujaku, you take Aoba down first.”

They went. Trip went next, then Clear with Sei, then Virus, then Noiz last. Mizuki planted himself in the middle of the room, gripping his metal spar with both hands, trying to calm his racing heart as the door bent steadily inwards, the monster on the other side hell-bent on getting in before its prey escaped.

He was glad no one had argued with him, or tried to ask why he’d put himself in charge; it just came naturally these days, with the amount of time he’d spent directing his own Rib team and running his own business. Koujaku was the leader of his own Rib team, true, but he was so over the moon with Aoba at the moment that his head wasn’t really on straight. Mizuki had had more than enough practice with disappointment to be able to keep it from interfering with his critical thinking.

Virus had just disappeared below the window sill, Mizuki preparing to follow him, when the door gave way. Mizuki took one look at the face that came barreling through the door at him and felt his heart stop. The thing _had_ no face: it was just a bloody hole where the neck and head used to be, atop a body that might have belonged to a wolfhound or giant cat, four-legged and vicious and covered in open, bleeding sores.

Mizuki heard someone screaming and was only mildly surprised to realize it was himself. He turned and vaulted himself out the window, gripping the blanket-wrapped, shattered edge of the frame with one hand and grabbing for the makeshift rope with the other, but in his fright he missed his mark. His velocity ripped his anchoring hand from the frame, and with a despairing yell he dropped like a stone, plummeting end-over-end towards the cement six stories down.

Below him he heard screams, weirdly distorted as he sped rapidly towards their sources. “MIZUKI-SAN, NO!!” He had time to wonder if being splattered against the concrete was going to hurt, or if he would be killed before he had time to feel anything. On his next revolution he caught a glimpse of Clear springing light-footed off some metal object—the hospital table, dented badly by its fall—and then launching himself upwards like an Olympian off a springboard.

Screams, a rough gasp, and then “I got you!” spoken right in his ear, as a pair of arms caught him in mid-air, ass up, face down. “Hold on, Mizuki-san!”

“OOF!” The wind went out of him in a rush. For a second of awful vertigo Mizuki struggled to not immediately vomit the contents of his stomach all over the pavement, but the arc of Clear’s jump was already descending, Mizuki held tightly in both arms.

They landed in a jumble of limbs, Clear losing his balance as they hit earth and toppling over with Mizuki on top of him. “Fffhhh-—” Mizuki rolled over away from Clear, struggling up on both arms, and then unceremoniously lost the battle to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged.

“Mizuki-san…” Clear bent over him, anxious, but Mizuki shoved his hands away.

“Don’t touch me,” he panted, head hanging between his shoulders. Clear pulled back, and even with Clear out of his line of sight Mizuki could feel the hurt radiating off him. He shoved that thought away, too, staggering to his feet.

“Are you okay?” Koujaku appeared at his other side.

Mizuki nodded, looking up into Koujaku’s face as he straightened slowly, wincing as his back and shoulders let it be known how unpleasant this experience was. “I’ll be alright,” he said brusquely. Koujaku lingered a moment, his troubled expression hinting that there was more he’d like to say, but Mizuki was not about to have any more of this conversation in front of other people.

He glanced around once, taking in the pale faces and barely-composed expressions; Aoba was crouched on the ground by Sei’s still form, and for a guy who had just summoned a bunch of hideous monsters to murder his rescuers, Sei’s face looked downright angelic. Mizuki’s lip curled, and to save himself from blurting out something else he’d regret he turned to look back up at the broken window. It gaped like an open wound in the side of the building, a dark maw that yawned open with jagged, broken teeth.

There was no sign of the nightmare that had charged at him from the doorway, save for a faint wisp of oily smoke that curled out of the window, like the lingering memory of a bad dream. Mizuki shuddered and turned around.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said shortly, and was met with a flurry of nods and murmured assent. He turned his gaze on Virus and Trip, his expression hardening. “You two. Get the fuck out of my face. And don’t ever let us see you again; members of my team are going to attack you on sight.”

“As will mine,” said Koujaku grimly. Even Noiz nodded, narrowing his eyes at the two Yakuza. Aoba glanced up, his face tight, but he said nothing. Evidently whatever friendship he’d once held for these two was not enough to expunge what had happened today, or with Mizuki and Dry Juice, and for that Mizuki was glad.

Trip crossed his arms, expression barely changing; Virus merely bowed his head. “It seems our time on Midorijima has come to an end,” he said placidly. “Aoba-san. Please take care. We wish you the best.”

“Good luck with Sei-san, Aoba,” said Trip, and then they turned and vanished swiftly down an alley that led off from the street they were on. Mizuki let out a breath. It wasn’t till this exact moment that he realized he had no idea where Virus’s snake All-mate had gotten to, or what had become of Trip’s huge lion. 

He wondered if Trip or Virus cared; Aoba would have cared, if it had been Ren. Mizuki sure as fuck didn’t. “Let’s get going,” he said again.

They headed south, towards the entrance of Platinum Jail and back towards the Old Resident District; Mizuki went first, followed by Clear carrying Sei, flanked on either side by Koujaku and Aoba. Mizuki avoided everyone’s eyes as they walked, his hand feeling empty without the metal spar that had been his near-constant companion for over a month now. He could feel the weight of Clear’s anxiety and Aoba and Koujaku’s broodiness behind him like heavy rainclouds, but he couldn’t bear to face any of them right now. He wasn’t sure when he would find the energy at all.

They may have finally solved the mystery as to why the hallucinations were happening, and what their source was, but they were as-yet no closer to stopping them. And even with the gain, Mizuki could not shake the feeling that something precious had been irrevocably damaged today, that he might never be able to get back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mizuki had always heard, "It gets worse before it gets better." Too bad they never told him exactly how much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for the soft-hearted: This chapter is a doozy. You may consider waiting until Chapter 8 is posted later this week so you can read them both in one go. 
> 
> As always, so many kudos to my wonderful beta circ_bamboo, and lots of love to my joannaestep for reading through this!

It was a long walk back.

Even though he’d taken the lead during the heat of the disaster at the abandoned hospice facility, Mizuki was more than happy to relinquish decision-making authority to Aoba and Koujaku as they headed home. Despite that, the trip home was still interminable, the silence hanging heavy on his shoulders.

Clear walked behind Mizuki, carrying Sei and pacing Aoba and Koujaku; now that Mizuki knew his silver-haired sweetheart was actually a robot, and after witnessing the inhuman jump into the air that had saved his life, it was no surprise to see Clear carrying Sei’s weight as though he weighed nothing at all. Mizuki found himself wondering if Clear was scared of the boy in his arms, and then tightened his jaw.

Of course Clear wasn’t scared, he thought bitterly. Robots might be programmed to avoid or reject certain dangerous things, but they didn’t feel _fear_. No matter how realistic their anxiety seemed to the humans they were designed to fool.

Several times during their walk, Mizuki caught Noiz staring at him, his expression difficult to decipher. He tried not to notice; he wasn’t in the mood for a staring contest.

It took forever to get back to the edge of the East District, where Aoba and Koujaku both lived. Mizuki slowed as they came to Aoyagi street. “Aoba,” he said brusquely, and his friend turned to look at him. “I’m gonna head home, I think. It’s been a long day.”

Aoba glanced at Koujaku, then back to Mizuki. “Are you sure that’s safe?” he asked. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “There might be more monsters on your way home. I mean…”

“I can go with you, Mizuki-san,” Clear said quickly.

“No, you go with Aoba,” Mizuki said, raising a hand to stop further protest as he saw Koujaku opening his mouth. “I just need to go home and rest for awhile, that’s all. I don’t need any company. You’ll fill me in on what Tae says later, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” Aoba said, with obvious reluctance. “Are you sure you don’t want to come? Granny is making dinner for everyone.”

“Yes, I’m really sure,” Mizuki said firmly. “Just keep me posted. Take care, everyone.” He turned away and headed brusquely down the street, trying not to notice the distress in Clear’s face.

It wasn’t real. Mizuki knew that. The wide eyes, the trembling lower lip, the paleness of Clear’s face, the slump of his shoulders … none of it was real. Mizuki just needed to keep telling himself that until he could make it stick.

It was fucking cruel to make a robot that looked and sounded and acted so human. Mizuki was almost angry that Toue had left the island; he wanted badly to find the son of a bitch so that he could punch his smirking face in. Mizuki shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked, tasting sour bile on the back of his tongue, as though the ache in his chest was eating away at the lining of his stomach. Some part of him knew that it was a bad idea to go off alone like he was, but all Mizuki wanted was to crawl off somewhere private so he could lick his wounds in peace.

His Coil went off on his way home; he glanced at it once, and as soon as he saw Aoba’s name he shut it, turned it off, and put it away again. He did the same with his phone before it could go off, something he almost never did; he made it a policy to be reachable by his Rib-mates at all times, in case they needed him. Not that the phones were even _working_ right now, but Mizuki already knew he’d be no good to anyone in this state. 

Mizuki got home in fifteen minutes flat. He locked the front door behind him, then immediately made his way upstairs and locked the door to his apartment behind him, too. He turned around and took three steps into the kitchen before he stopped cold, staring at the frilly apron still draped over the back of one of his kitchen chairs.

He shut his eyes briefly, putting his hand to his face as bitterness rolled through him like a wave, coming to rest in a painful knot in his throat. _I would rather make you happy, than unhappy,_ said Clear—Clear’s ghost, twisting his hands and watching Mizuki from where he’d been standing, right over there. Had it really only been twelve hours ago?

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _fair_. Mizuki stalked across the room, grabbing up the apron, his fingers tightening in the soft fabric. It smelled of lavender, plus the undertone of some other sweet scent, like the memory of roses. “They even managed to make it smell like a human,” Mizuki muttered; the sound of his own voice in his ears was startling and harsh.

By the time Clear arrived, twenty minutes later, Mizuki was well on his way to being stone drunk.

There was a noise from the—from the bedroom, he realized. Mizuki looked up from the half-empty glass of whiskey, and saw Clear standing in the door to the hallway. Clear’s face was splotchy, his eyes puffy and red. Mizuki wondered, distantly, where his gas-mask was. Had he lost it back at the hospice where they’d found Sei?

“Oh, look who it is,” said Mizuki. “Why am I not surprised that you just broke in through my window. They programmed you to cry, too, huh? Gotta hit all the buttons.”

“Mizuki-san, please give me a chance to explain.” Clear’s voice was tight, urgent. Something in Mizuki’s chest twisted to hear him sound so upset. The feeling made him stand up too quickly, and Clear balked, hesitating where he stood and watching Mizuki. “I did not mean to lie to you,” Clear began. “I thought—”

“What the fuck did you think?” Mizuki demanded, and Clear winced. “You think what you’re programmed to think.”

“That is not true,” Clear said, clenching his hands at his sides. “I—I wasn’t programmed to feel this way! I am sorry, I should have told you sooner, but I, I was scared—”

“Scared that I would realize I was being duped by another of Toue’s bullshit creations?” Mizuki could hear the roughness in his own voice, equal parts whiskey and ruin. Fuck it. “Yeah, well. You were right. If I’d known what the hell you were, I would have told you to stay the fuck away from me. I’ve had enough of Toue’s work to last me the rest of my life.”

Clear’s face went pale, those precious twin moles by his mouth standing out in stark relief against his white skin. His lower lip trembled; for someone who’d hidden behind a mask for so long, he was terribly expressive. Another so-called amazing work of mechanical wizardry. Mizuki took a swig of whiskey and set the glass down with a loud _clink_ ; it burned all the way down his throat, settling in his stomach like coal. “Fuck it,” said Mizuki. “I’m done. I’m throwing in the towel.”

“What?” Clear’s eyes widened, and he took another step forward, reaching out a hand pleadingly. “Mizuki-san, what do you mean, you’re done?”

“I. Quit,” Mizuki said. He bit the words out like poisonous little stones. “I should have known it was quitting time after Morphine broke half my team and I spent 4 months in the hospital for having the gall to try to stop them, but hey, guess what? One of my so-called best friends, turns out, he’s one of Toue’s creations too.”

“You can’t blame Aoba-san for what Toue-san did!” Clear protested. Mizuki laughed, an ugly, humorless sound.

“Yeah, I thought so too. And hey, it’s not like he _meant_ to crack my brain open like a melon, right?” Mizuki waved his hand. “But whatever, joke’s on me: everything I touch has been ruined by Toue somehow, so. I quit. I’m leaving Dry Juice to Koujaku, or one of my seconds, and I’m getting the fuck off Midorijima, like I should have when I got out of the hospital.”

“You’re abandoning Dry Juice? Because of me? Mizuki-san, no!” Clear’s voice broke. To Mizuki’s dismay, Clear started to cry again for real; he drew in a few hiccoughy breaths, wrapping both his arms across his chest as though to hold himself together. “You c-can’t! You can’t do that! Dry Juice is so important to you!”

“Why the fuck does it matter? Stop acting like you care! You’re just a fucking robot, you don’t even know how I feel!” Mizuki clenched the top rung of the chair, hard enough to feel the wood pressing against the meat of his palms.

“But I do care!” Clear let his hands fall to his sides, balled into fists. “I care about you so much! Y-you’re wrong about me, I’m not just programmed to feel this!”

“Shut up!” Mizuki yelled. “Just—stop pretending!”

“I am not pretending! My feelings for you are real!” Clear took a deep breath. “I… I am sorry that I did not tell you what I am sooner. But I just wanted to spend time with you, Mizuki-san.” He sounded so sad and hurt. Mizuki tasted bile on the back of his throat. “Please,” Clear said, voice barely above a whisper. “Please give me a chance.”

Mizuki licked his lips; swallowed, thick and bitter. “Get out,” he said roughly.

Clear stared at him for a few moments more. The look on his face burned itself onto Mizuki’s retinas, and in that moment, no matter how much he told himself that the person in front of him was just a robotic lie, he knew he’d never be able to rid himself of the shattered look in Clear’s eyes.

Then he was gone. Mizuki heard the sound of the window in his bedroom opening and shutting; the apartment was empty again.

Mizuki stood in the kitchen for what felt like a year, listening to the sounds of his empty apartment and the blood rushing in his ears. Eventually, he straightened, grabbing up the highball of whiskey on his table and downing the rest of it in one bitter draw.

He could feel the alcohol in his face and throat, and feel it eating through the lining of his stomach, too, malignant as cancer. Or maybe that was just him: this final betrayal had broken something new inside him, despite the fact that he’d thought there was nothing left to break. His heart had cracked in two, and now something acidic and black was seeping out, eating through his organs from the inside out.

He looked at his empty glass for a long moment, contemplating. Then he went back to the bottle for more.

* * * * *

Based on long acquaintance with Aoba, Mizuki hazarded a guess that he would be getting paid a visit by his indignant friend—but probably not for at least a day or two, not while Aoba was busy dealing with news of a long-lost brother who was inconveniently destroying the island’s collective sanity. So that night, he indulged in his misery by continuing to get drunk until the whiskey was all gone and he was absolutely stinking drunk. He was passed out face-down on the bed before 9 pm, and woke twice in the middle of the night—once to vomit and drink some water, the second time to vomit again and then stand wretchedly under the spray of his shower until the worst of the nausea had passed and he could crawl back into bed.

His assessment of Aoba turned out to be at least half-right. The phones were shot, so no calls came through. And he got nothing more than two Coil messages from Aoba that night (both of which he deleted without opening), but his self-imposed exile was rudely interrupted the next morning by a sharp knocking at his door.

“Fuck off,” he called groggily. He rolled over, pulling the covers over his head and shoving his face against the pillow.

“GET UP AND ANSWER THE FUCKING DOOR!” Aoba’s voice cut through Mizuki’s aching skull like a wrecking ball, and he groaned, cursing against the pillowcase.

“Go AWAY, Aoba!” Distantly, Mizuki heard the sounds of metallic clicking and rattling, and then the sound of a door swinging open and shut. Only then did he remember that of _course_ Aoba had the keys to his place; he and Koujaku and Clear had all spent months out of their lives rebuilding this small part of Mizuki’s.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ went the refrain inside his aching skull, _fucking fuckity fuck shit fuck—_

“Get up, you jerk!” Aoba’s voice again, this time from right over Mizuki’s head. The next moment, the covers were being yanked off Mizuki’s head, and Mizuki found himself being dragged out of bed and dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

“FUCK! Aoba!” Mizuki winced. He shaded his eyes, squinting irritably up at Aoba’s furious expression. “God, don’t you know what a locked door means? Go away!”

“What the hell is your problem?” Aoba demanded. “When did you turn into such an asshole?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Mizuki snapped, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. “Who do you think you are, that you can just come over here and lecture me?” Now he noticed that Aoba hadn’t come alone; Noiz was here too, which Mizuki found both weird and _extremely_ unwelcome. He supposed Koujaku was at home with Tae (home protecting her from Sei, more like). At least the pierced little twerp was hanging back, hands shoved in his pockets and watching the proceedings with no discernible trace of emotion. If only everyone could be so lucky, Mizuki thought bitterly.

“I’m your friend,” Aoba said hotly. “Or at least, I was the last time I checked. Unless you consider me too much of a freak now?”

Clear had told Aoba something of what Mizuki had said, then. The words he’d thrown at Clear in the heat of the moment came floating back to Mizuki slowly, burnt and stale in the back of his mind. “That’s not fair,” Mizuki said, stupidly.

“It’s not _fair_?” Aoba repeated, his voice rising a little, and Mizuki cursed his own flagging brain, not yet recovered from his bender the night before. “What’s not _fair_ is the bullshit way you’ve been acting! How could you say those things to Clear? How could you say that shit about me? If you were mad at me you should have said something!”

“What good would that have done?” Mizuki retorted. He settled painfully on the edge of the bed, leaning his elbows on the tops of his thighs. “Look, I didn’t—I didn’t mean what I said about you. I don’t think you’re a freak, Aoba.” He sighed, and raked one hand through his hair.

Aoba glared at him. His color was high in his cheeks, and that sheen of gold had turned up in his eyes again. Mizuki wondered dully if he was about to get another taste of Aoba’s strange new powers. “You can’t just say that shit and expect it—expect me to believe you,” Aoba said after a moment. “Not after what happened.”

“Oh, save it,” Mizuki said irritably. “I’m sorry, okay? I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know you came to visit me in the hospital, and you did… all of this.” He waved his hand encompassingly, gesturing at the apartment, at the sorry state of affairs that was his life. “But you gotta cut me some slack, yeah? Everyone knew Clear was a robot but me, and none of you told me.”

Aoba made a face. Behind him, Noiz stirred, straightening a little and staring at Mizuki, but still he said nothing. “It wasn’t my secret to tell you,” Aoba said. Mizuki looked at him again. “Clear asked us not to say anything to anyone.”

“Wow, what a great idea,” said Mizuki sarcastically. “Mind-control robot made by Toue asks you to keep his secret? ‘Gee, Clear, that’s no problem at all!’”

“Fuck you,” Aoba snapped. “Why do you have some kind of fucking victim complex about this? Do you really think you were the only person whose life has been messed up by Toue? How do you think I felt when I discovered that Toue made me to be used as some kind of mind-control guinea pig? And now Sei!”

“One, I was talking about _the robot who let me think he was human_ , and two, why AREN’T you more concerned by this?” Mizuki could feel his own hurt and anger coming rushing back, crowding out the sick exhaustion he’d woken up with. He bunched his hands into fists, swallowing past the knot in his throat. “And Christ, why the hell shouldn’t I be mad? Why shouldn’t I feel jerked around? I just finished getting over all the lies your Yakuza Morphine buddies fed me and my team, and then I discover that—that this relationship I thought I had with Clear is just more manipulation, just another tool made by Toue? Who the hell are you to tell me not to be upset about that?!”

“Toue has nothing to do with how Clear is acting right now,” said Noiz, speaking up for the first time. He stared at Mizuki with that faint non-expression he always wore. “He was a defect, and marked for destruction. He’s only still alive because a researcher rescued him from the scrap heap and raised Clear as his grand-son.”

Mizuki glanced at him, uneasy. “So what?” he said after a moment. “A robot that’s defective is still a robot, still just running the programming he was built with.”

Noiz shook his head. “He isn’t,” he said. “Clear’s programming has completely changed from what he was made with. He’s a self-polymorphic program—” Noiz paused at the look at Aoba and Mizuki’s faces, his lip curling for a moment before continuing. “He’s growing and changing and re-writing his own programming based on what he learns. There is no other like him.”

Mizuki looked from Noiz to Aoba, eyebrows raised. “Noiz removed Clear’s keylock while you were in the hospital,” Aoba said. His lips pursed into a thin line. “He found out about his past around the same time I found out about mine, around when Oval Tower collapsed. He wanted to be free of any of Toue’s lingering influence, so… he asked me to help break that part of his programming.”

“He’s still a fucking robot,” Mizuki said roughly. “He’s not human, he’s—he’s not—”

“He’s a person,” said Aoba flatly. “He’s more of a person than plenty of humans I know. Also, if you make one more crack about ‘my Yakuza friends,’ I’m gonna break every bottle in your bar, and then tape a photo to your face of the all abusive assholes you’ve had to kick out of your team.”

“Whatever,” said Mizuki irritably. He met Aoba’s accusative glare for a few more moments, and then he sighed, putting his face in his hands again. “ _Fine_. I’m sorry, Aoba.”

“You fucking better be.” Aoba paused. “You owe Clear an apology, too.”

“Yeah, well… We all have things we deserve but won’t get,” Mizuki said. He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. He kept his eyes down, staring at his feet. After a few moments, he felt the bed shift beside him as Aoba sat down next to him, and then the light weight of a hand on his shoulder. Mizuki sighed, rubbing at his face.

He already knew the question Aoba was going to ask next. “Are you really gonna leave Dry Juice?”

Mizuki didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I really don’t know. I can’t—I can’t keep doing this, Aoba. It’s killing me.”

The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently. “I thought your membership had leveled out…?”

“It has,” Mizuki said tiredly. “Kind of. But it’s—every time I think I have something good, something comes along and ruins it. You can only do so much, you know? Before it’s just—setting yourself up for another fall.”

A short laugh sounded in front of him. Mizuki lifted his head and glared at Noiz. “Something funny, you shithead?” he asked, nettled. “Why are you even here, anyway?”

“Koujaku didn’t want Aoba coming to see you alone, so I offered to come along,” said Noiz mildly. “And I would have wanted to come anyway. I wanted to know why a super-intelligent creation like Clear fell for a technophobic idiot like you.”

“Noiz,” Aoba said warningly, trying to cut in. Mizuki ignored him, sitting up, his lip twisting.

“No, let’s hear it,” he said. “Tell me. Why the fuck _did_ he decide to come mess with me? Wouldn’t a tech-loving jackass like you have been a better target?”

“Mizuki!”

“I thought the same thing,” Noiz said. He still sounded so fucking calm. It was maddening. Mizuki was so busy getting angry at this cocky little shit for daring to come into his home that he almost didn’t register the words that came next. “I couldn’t understand why he’d go for you and not someone like me, who actually understands him. But, I think I finally figured it out. I only ever saw Clear as a robot. A super-intelligent unique robot, but... Not a human. You, though. You only ever treated him like a person. And that was all he wanted.”

Mizuki stared. Whatever he’d been expecting to hear, that wasn’t it. He sat there glaring at Noiz, who gazed right back at him, impassive and unresponsive. It occurred to Mizuki in that moment that Clear had more emotion to show in his little finger than this weird kid did in his entire body.

“I have to get going,” Aoba said finally. He stood up, still looking at Mizuki with an expression that was somewhere between irritation and concern. That, at least, was a semi-familiar look on him. “Granny needs my help with Sei, and Koujaku will worry if we take too long.”

“Yeah,” said Mizuki faintly. “Go on, then.”

“Don’t do anything too stupid without talking to someone about it, okay?” Aoba nudged him with his boot, and Mizuki finally stirred, looking up at him. “And I mean it. Apologize to Clear. You really hurt him bad.”

Something twisted in Mizuki’s chest then, but he pushed it away. “I’ll think about it,” Mizuki said, doing his best to keep his voice neutral. Aoba pursed his lips again, but nodded anyway and stood up.

They left, Noiz casting him one last enigmatic look before they shut the door behind them. Mizuki locked it after them and trudged back to his bedroom, collapsing onto the mattress with a groan and pulling the covers over his head again.

It made no difference; his mind was no quieter. Mizuki kept his eyes shut, even though he already knew that he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Then again, why should he bother?

He’d already lost his ability to dream.

* * * * *

The rest of that day was a total wash, as were the two following ones. Mizuki locked himself in his apartment and canceled all his appointments; after sending out a mass text saying he was currently unavailable due to work, he turned off his Coil and spared a few dour moments to be thankful that the phones were all still malfunctioning to the point of being useless—possibly the only silver lining of this whole dismal situation with Sei.

(They didn’t have concrete proof that it was Sei’s fault that half the telecommunication on Midorijima was malfunctioning, of course; it wasn’t like he’d woken up and given them a categorized list of all the shit he’d been fucking up. But it wasn’t a far stretch to assume that the same miasma of increasingly black visions laying over the island was linked to the mass phone failure, especially in light of learning that Sei had once also created Usui to police a virtual reality game.)

Mizuki locked his doors and did not answer messages or visitors. He lay in bed, or watched TV that he had no recollection of later; he hardly slept, and choked down only enough food and water to keep what appetite he had at bay. The jellyfish that Clear had brought him in the hospital were banished to the closet, along with Clear’s apron; Mizuki couldn’t bring himself to look at them, but he couldn’t bear to throw them away, either. He just barely mustered up the energy to shower each day, mostly out of habit. He drank, but not as much as his first bender—everything tasted sour to him, devoid of any satisfaction or solace.

Four days after the journey into Platinum Jail found Mizuki sat on the couch, listlessly drinking a beer. Deep down, he knew that he was in mourning—mourning not only Clear, for whom he’d somehow fallen _hard_ with almost no warning, but also for himself: the person he’d once thought he was. Someone kind, and accepting, and worthy of being the leader of Dry Juice. Someone worth loving the way he’d hoped Clear might love him.

But Clear wasn’t even _real_. ( _Are you sure?_ nagged a voice in the back of Mizuki’s head, a voice that sounded somewhere between Tae Seragaki and his own mother. _His tears looked real enough. The way he kissed you was real enough!_ ) But no, _no_ , he knew he wasn’t being over-sensitive, god fucking dammit. How could everyone else just look past the fact that Clear was a robot created by Toue? Keylock or no keylock!

For every member of Dry Juice who recovered themselves and their memories after being brainwashed by Morphine, Mizuki could think of at least two young people who had turned up no better than vegetables, their mind and sanity in tatters. Some were still in the hospital, in the long-term care ward; many had lapsed into comas and died, or been disconnected from life support when their brain functions had ceased. Toue had ruined the lives of so many people. Including, almost, Mizuki’s. It was impossible for anyone to think that he ought to look past that—forgetting such terrible and recent history would be a fool’s errand.

But, increasingly, Mizuki couldn’t reconcile that idea with the person that he knew. The longer he sat in his room alone, the more memories resurfaced: Clear sitting at his bar counter, asking him why flowers grew in different colors; Clear hurrying eagerly through the junk-piles with Yukie, searching here and there for valuable metal, and being so dejected when half the time the things he found were no better than trash; Clear selflessly offering to help Aoba with his deliveries, or walk one of Mizuki’s clients home. Clear singing to himself while Mizuki cleaned the bar, Clear cooking, Clear’s warm and guileless smile.

Clear, who had been so anxious at letting Mizuki take off his mask—who had lit up like a star when Mizuki had told him that he was beautiful. Clear, who had tried to tell Mizuki what he really was, only to be brushed off when Mizuki had jumped to stupid conclusions in his haste and misguided self-confidence.

Mizuki shifted, staring unseeing out the window at some barely-heard noise. Someone laughing, he thought; walking down on the street outside his apartment. The sun was shining, but he wasn’t feeling the warmth. He needed to get the hell out of his apartment, he knew; come to some kind of decision, and soon. But it had been three days, and he still had no idea what to do.

He took another drink of his beer, and then set it down, disgusted at the sour taste. Maybe… maybe he’d go to Hiraoka shrine again. At least it would get him out of the house, give him a reason to walk some of this off. Maybe it would clear his head. Mizuki sighed, and dragged himself to his feet, heading to the closet to dig out his boots and jacket.

His eyes fell on a snatch of yellow, barely visible under a pile of other things shoved in the back of the closet. He reached for it without thinking, and came back with Clear’s yellow scarf in his hand. Mizuki stared at it, baffled. What did a robot need with a scarf?

“Why does a robot hallucinate his dead grandfather?” he asked aloud, and instantly wished that he hadn’t.

 _He’s a person,_ said Aoba’s voice in his memory. _He’s more of a person than plenty of humans I know._ Mizuki shut his eyes for a moment, as though against a bright light. Then he gently pulled the scarf out of the closet where it was caught in coats and boots and jackets, and wrapped it around his own throat. It was soft, and felt like it would be warm, even in a strong wind. His fingers reached up, nudging beneath the folds of the scarf to find the healed-over scar that was the remnant of his skin-graft.

Mizuki bit his lower lip, hard enough that after a moment he tasted copper. His throat felt tight; his eyes stung, the vision of his own closet blurry. He stood there a few more moments, catching his breath, and then he grabbed his jacket out of the closet and pulled it on. Four minutes later, Coil in one pocket and useless phone in the other, he was out the front door.

He turned at the end of the street—not east, towards Hiraoka Shrine, but west, back deeper into the Old Resident District and the Seragaki house. He figured that he had to start somewhere.

* * * * *

His relief at finally coming to some kind of decision was short-lived.

He got to Aoba’s house in under 15 minutes, and was only slightly surprised that Tae answered the door. “Hi, Tae-san,” he said, and had to fight the urge to scuff his toe in the dirt like a boy twenty minutes late for dinner.

Tae stared at him. “Aoba’s not home, Mizuki,” she said after a moment, and narrowed her eyes at him. “But I’m more than happy to yell at you for him. What the hell has gotten into you? Saying such nasty things to your friends! You’re better than that.”

Mizuki winced. Much like Koujaku had as a child, Mizuki had spent a good chunk of his teenage years hanging around Tae Seragaki’s house hoping for dinner or some of her famous donuts and generally enduring being mothered by her. He’d met Aoba by the time he was 15, and since his own parents were already gone to the mainland by then, Tae was the closest thing he’d had to a parent figure well into adulthood. He should have known she wouldn’t bother sparing his feelings, even though he was approaching thirty at this point.

“I’m here to apologize, actually,” he said, attempting not to sound totally pathetic.

Tae’s eyebrows went up, the weight of her disapproval decreasingly fractionally. “Good to hear you haven’t totally forsaken your good sense,” she said gruffly. “Come in, I was just finishing some baking. You’re still too skinny, so you’d better sit and have something to eat.” Saying this, she turned around and went back into the house, leaving him standing in the door like an idiot.

“Tae-san, that’s not—”

“Are you going to stand in the door all day like some kind of lost child? Make sure it’s shut all the way behind you!”

Mizuki sighed, and then surrendered, stepping inside and pulling the door shut behind him. He slipped out of his boots and followed Tae into the kitchen, glancing curiously around. It’d been too long since he’d come over for dinner or just tea, and he felt another stab of guilt. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked, groping for something to say or do.

“Please. I’m not so far gone I need you to do my work for me. Just have a seat.”

Mizuki sat. He watched Tae bustle around the kitchen, and was reminded so forcefully of Clear’s surprise breakfast that he had to shut his eyes for a moment to let it pass. The fragrant smell of fresh donuts and the sound of a porcelain bowl being set down on the wooden table made him look up again. Tae was watching him shrewdly, the look on her face stating clearly that he was being judged, and might well be found wanting.

“If you aren’t here to tell me that you are looking for Clear to apologize to him for being such an idiot, then you aren’t the man I thought you were,” she said evenly, and set down a steaming cup of tea in front of him.

Mizuki’s shoulders slumped. He opened his mouth, reaching for something, anything to say, some intelligent place to start. Before he could find the words, though, his stomach rumbled loud enough to break his train of thought, and Tae cracked a smile. “Eat,” she said pointedly, and went back over to the counter for something. Mizuki, who yet retained some vestiges of common sense, did as he was told and started in on the donuts and hot tea Tae had set out for him.

“Tae-san, these are amazing,” he managed, after gulping down two donuts and nearly fainting from how perfect they were. “You gotta be careful, or half the punks in the Old Resident District are gonna turn up begging after your cooking.”

Tae snorted. “You’ve been spending too much time with Koujaku, spouting stuff like that,” she said, returning to the table with what turned out to be another mug of tea. She sat down opposite him, sipping her tea, and fixed him with another penetrating look.

Mizuki could have sworn he could feel himself shrink in his seat under that look. “I’m looking for Clear, yeah,” he said after a moment. “I thought I’d start here first, since he doesn’t have a Coil, or a phone. Not that the phones are working.” Something occurred to him, and he made a face. “Speaking of phones, uh. How’s Sei doing?” The real reason Tae was home in the middle of the day, he realized, was that she was clearly home taking care of her long-lost grandson.

Tae’s lips pursed into a thin line. “I haven’t seen Clear since he came here after trying to talk some sense into you,” she said, answering the questions in order. Mizuki was glad he had a mouth full of donut so that she couldn’t hear the pained noise he made when she said that. “He was very upset. I imagine he’s taken some time to be alone since then. As for Sei…” Tae let out a long sigh, folding her hands in her lap and glancing towards the hallway, and the stairs that led up to the second floor. “He’s still unconscious,” she said after a moment. “It’s not good.”

Mizuki’s heart sank. “So you haven’t been able to help him much, then,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You haven’t left the house at all since you brought him here, have you?” It was Mizuki’s turn to widen his eyes; he shook his head, and Tae sighed and picked up her tea. “No. He’s gotten worse instead of better. I managed to bring an IV line and feeding tube here for him, so that he won’t starve to death or die of dehydration, but he hasn’t responded to any of the medicines or therapies I’ve tried so far.”

The air went out of Mizuki’s lungs in a rush, sad as a deflating balloon. He hadn’t realized until this moment exactly how much faith he’d put in Tae’s abilities. “Fuck,” he said, forgetting his manners in his dismay. Then something occurred to him. “Why did you ask if I’d left the house?” he asked.

“Because if you had, you’d already know that I haven’t been able to help Sei,” she said. “Another four or five people have been killed by yokai in the past three days. I’m frankly astonished you didn’t get into trouble on the way over here.”

Mizuki stared. A number of different emotions warred for supremacy: horror at the news of the rising death-toll, shame at his own self-absorption, and a burst of desperate worry for Clear. “They don’t ever appear for me, it’s weird,” he said distractedly. “What about Aoba and Koujaku? Are they okay? Why aren’t they home right now?”

“Because unlike _some_ people, Koujaku is out checking up on his team and their families, as well as some of his clients, and Aoba is with him,” said Tae, with her usual sense of tact and delicacy. The accompanying look she gave Mizuki was as nasty as some knife-wounds he’d endured. “Koujaku wanted Aoba to stay here with me, but Aoba refused to let him go out alone. You’re lucky I even opened the door for you.”

“I know it,” he said. He took another sip of his tea, frowning. “I still don’t understand why the yokai don’t come into people’s houses.”

“Probably simply because people believe that their homes are safe,” said Tae with a shrug. Mizuki raised his eyebrows.

“Are they, though?” Another thought occurred to him, and he leaned forward. “Is it safe for you to be here alone with him?” Tae gave him a look like he’d just asked if she was sure she really knew how to make tea, but this time Mizuki wasn’t so willing to let it drop. “Look, I’ve already screwed up badly enough as it is, I’m not going to add this to my list!”

“I have already had this conversation with Koujaku and my own grandson,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No one has been attacked by a hallucination inside their own home. I still can’t say why any more than you can, but I promised Aoba and Koujaku I wouldn’t leave the house alone, and that’s going to have to suffice.” She fixed him with another meaningful look. “Because I know what you really want to do is go looking for Clear. And you should. Someone needs to find that boy, and make sure he’s safe.”

Fuck. Mizuki took a moment to just let that sink in, to rub a little more salt in his open wound. After a moment or two, he nodded. “I was gonna check his house next,” he said. “Anywhere else you might suggest I look?”

“You know him as well as I do, if not better.” Tae pursed her lips, thinking. “Stop by Junk Shop Heibon, just in case. Haga-san might have seen him.”

“I’ll do that.” Mizuki drained the last of his tea, and then stood up. “Thank you so much, Tae-san.” He hoped she knew how much he meant by that. He’d have to make sure. He had a lot to make up for, it seemed. Mizuki thanked her again (this time for her wonderful cooking), and then apologized for taking up her time, bowing enough on his way out the door to make Clear look like a casual amateur at polite deference. He got to the end of the walk outside Aoba’s house before he let himself sink over with a groan of embarrassment, face in both hands for a few moments.Then he straightened and set off at a brisk walk, heading to the closest location on his list.

But Clear wasn’t at Heibon. Nor was he at Yukie’s house, although Mizuki was met with another hefty dose of worry and disapproval over how he’d been acting the past few days when he stopped by. He also wasn’t at the ice cream shop he’d told Mizuki about, or the glass and jewelry shop on Aoyagi street. Mizuki wasn’t thrilled, but he wasn’t yet truly panicked, either. No doubt Clear was just hiding himself away for a few days to nurse his broken heart, much like Mizuki had been doing.

The thought made him walk faster, ignoring the way his shadow stretched out long behind him, late gold of the afternoon sun painting ghostly shadows on the walls and street corners. He spared no mind to the ghost town he was hurrying through, barely registering the empty streets and abandoned shop fronts. Sei had done a far better job emptying the streets of the Old Resident District than Toue ever had, but the only thing Mizuki could think about was what he was going to say to Clear when he found him.

He could already picture the look on Clear’s face—mostly because it was the same shattered face he’d been wearing when Mizuki had told him to leave his house. Mizuki could feel his heart break all over again, remembering the awful things he’d said. He still wasn’t sure how to go about dating a person not fully human, but he could no longer pretend that he could live with the idea of letting Clear walk out of his life, either. He’d apologize, and then he’d find some way to ask for a second chance, and then—

Up ahead, the bulky shape of Clear’s house appeared. Mizuki’s train of thought derailed abruptly at the sight of it, overwhelmed by the _wrongness_ of its appearance. He broke into a run, hurrying forward; his stomach lurched as he took in the dark, broken windows and the door hanging half-open, as dejected and broken as Clear’s face had been the last time Mizuki had seen him. “Clear!” Mizuki cried, unable to help himself. His voice echoed off the piles of busted tires and corrugated metal walls, echoing weirdly back to him. “CLEAR!”

He searched the whole house for Clear, for some sign of what had happened, but he couldn’t find a sign of habitation more recent than two days ago ( _god had it really only been two days ago?_ ), when Clear and Yukie and Mizuki had stopped in briefly before returning to their own part of town. There was no note, no half-finished baking project, no gas-mask.

The only thing Mizuki found was a huge glass mirror in an upstairs nook that had clearly once served as a bedroom; a large blanket lay on the ground beside it, grey with settled dust. The mirror itself might once have been beautiful, but it was impossible to say for certain now: the glass had been smashed, its glittering pieces littering the floor like the remnants of someone’s daydream. Mizuki stood in the middle of the sea of broken glass, tasting his own hopes and apologies turning to ashes on his tongue.

There was nothing else. He couldn’t tell if the broken mirror and windows had been Clear’s doing, or the work of some attacking phantom, but the earlier conversation about intruders not entering the sanctity of a home sat queasily in the back of his mind as he paced desperately through the house.

Finally he left, empty-handed and heavy-hearted. Full dark was threatening to fall, but at this rate he would have almost welcomed a yokai assault, some opportunity to vent his renewed grief. As always, though, the monsters left him alone, and he walked through the desolate city to his own front steps without ever being stopped once.

Clear was gone. He was gone, and Mizuki had no idea how to find him. He knew there were more ways to try—he ought to go see Aoba, or Koujaku—but the sight of Clear’s ruined house was like a death knell; he couldn’t think of anything but the hollowness in his stomach.

He’d had the chance at something good, against all odds and his own stupid misconceptions, and he’d thrown it away like a fool. Mizuki slumped up the stairs to his apartment and went straight to his bedroom, mechanically stripping off his clothes and crawling into bed. Briefly, he wondered how hard it would be to smother himself with his own pillow, but his despair was so black and his strength so far gone that he didn’t even think he had the energy to get drunk again.

He fully expected to lay awake for hours—sleep hadn’t been any refuge to him for months and months now, why should it start now?—but against all odds, he slipped into sleep within 20 minutes of crawling into bed. And that night, for the first time in half a year, Mizuki dreamed.

He had no way of knowing that everyone else on Midorjima would be sharing the same dream, or exactly how awful it was going to be.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eye of the storm has finally arrived, and the only way out is through. Mizuki can only hope he can find Clear before it's too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Chapter 8, just one more to go after this! Thanks as always go to my two wonderful betas/partners in crime, joannaestep and circ_bamboo. Thanks also to misanthrobot for letting me pick their brain on a few things!
> 
> One note: Chapter 9 will be delayed by a few days as compared to my usual posting schedule, because I have a huge exam, a bunch of assignments, and a birthday party (mine) to get through first. Expect Ch. 9 in roughly a week. Thanks for reading!

The first thing Mizuki heard was the wind blowing, and it was loud. A moment later he realized that it wasn’t wind he was hearing at all—it was moaning.

Mizuki opened his eyes. Instead of the darkened beige of his apartment ceiling, it was the wide mantle of the sky that arched overhead: full dark, no stars. Beneath his body was cold, uneven stone; flagstones, he thought distantly. He sat up and looked around. One by one, as though each was being illuminated in turn by big Klieg lights, buildings and details of the landscape around him appeared.

First the familiar shape of his own shop front, then the shops around it. Then the tea shop at the end of the street, then the public square kitty-corner to it. Mizuki shook his head a little, trying to shake some of the fog from his mind and remember why the fuck he had passed out on the street outside his shop.

That was when he saw the source of the moaning. Two figures appeared at the end of the street, grappling with each other in a life-and-death struggle; from where Mizuki was on the ground, it looked like a pair of brothers. Mizuki thought he knew one of them, maybe; they could be twins, their faces were that similar. But something was off about the second man—his skin was washed-out, as though something had robbed him of his color, and his arms and legs were the stretched-out limbs of a marionette, unnaturally elongated. Mizuki scrambled to his feet, hurrying forward to help the stranger in distress, and was halfway down the block when he realized that his metal spar was in his hand—the same metal spar that he’d left back at the abandoned hospice where they’d found Sei. He broke stride for a moment, confused, and in the split-second his attention was diverted, a despairing scream erupted ahead of him.

Mizuki jerked his gaze up in time to see the taller of the two men bear the other man to the ground, a cold fire in his eyes, thin white hands around the other man’s throat. “Hey!” shouted Mizuki, running forward with weapon in hand—only to recoil in shock as the man on the ground started to _melt_ , screaming in apparent agony even his body turned to mush. His scream turned to a horrible gurgle, only to abruptly cut off. The mess on the ground lit up like someone had dropped a match into it; the light pooled, coalesced into a dense ball of illumination, and then flowed up the attacker’s arms, limning his whole figure for a few blinding seconds. Mizuki threw up his arms to shield his eyes, staggering backwards a step. When he looked again, the gaunt man was climbing to his feet, staring at Mizuki, a wide and malevolent smile splitting his face.

His initial estimation of the stranger had been way below the mark. The man wasn’t “off,” he was fucking _horrifying_.

“Fuck!” Mizuki jerked his weapon up instinctively, and just barely managed to deflect the clawed hand that swung at his face. The man’s fingers twisted into sharp talons like a demented hawk; he—it—shrieked angrily at him, grabbing at his metal spar, trying to yank it out of Mizuki’s hands. Mizuki got a split-second look at the thing’s face—a too-wide mouth full of sharp rows of teeth, slits where his nose should be, flat inhuman eyes—and then let the years of back-alley fights take over. He let go of his spar, and in one smooth movement he threw himself to the side, planting both hands firmly on the ground and pivoting his hips hard. The thing let out a scream of triumph as it yanked away his spar, a noise that skittered upward into rage as Mizuki used his momentum and the strength of his core to help him swing his left leg up and land his heel right in the thing’s face.

The creature shrieked and staggered backwards. Mizuki’s following leg hit it in the chest, and it overbalanced, toppling over with another scream of animal rage. Mizuki popped upright again, scooping up his dropped weapon and raising it above his head with both hands. He brought the spar down and across, smashing it into the creature’s face. The creature gurgled, curling on its side and cowering, raising both clawed hands to cover itself. Mizuki was raising his spar again for another blow when his eyes fell on the shirt the creature was wearing.

It had a logo on it, a purple distorted skull over a set of words: _Dry Juice._ Mizuki froze, shock rolling over him in a thunderclap.

_Oh, no._

When no blow came, the thing on the ground let out another gurgle, this one interrogative. It peered up at him between two elongated talons, blinking suspiciously at him. Mizuki wavered, confusion and revulsion warring in him for primacy. Then he backed away, still gripping his metal spar. He put a good dozen yards between himself and the thing that might once have been one of his Ribmates, and then he broke, turning and running hard down the street, the sulfur-sour taste of bewilderment on the back of his tongue.

Up ahead shone a light, one of the many billboards in this part of town. It pulsed and glittered, an advertisement for carbonated juice. Then the image of the yellow juice flickered and blinked out of existence, replaced by a few lines of text, white on a black background.

 **THERE IS NO HOPE,** it said. **THE END IS HERE. GIVE UP NOW.**

Mizuki stared at the words, his heart in his throat. Behind him, growing more distant now, the same animal shriek ripped through the air. Mizuki kept running, his spar gripped in his hand. He changed his path, a new determination flooding him as he understood where he was. He’d been here before, after all.

This was his own mind. Or, maybe, not just his own mind. There was likely to be at least one other person here, and Mizuki knew that if he wanted to get out again with his sanity intact, he had to find Sei before Sei found him.

* * * * *

In theory, if Sei was in his head, then Sei was everywhere. But that didn’t mean he would just conveniently turn up when Mizuki wanted him to, and Mizuki had already spent four months of his life trapped inside his head. He didn’t see any reason to sit and ponder how it would work this time around. Instead, he aimed himself towards Aoba’s house, figuring that he would find Sei the same place in the world of his own head as he would in the real world.

As he ran, more and more figures appeared. Some were people, and every single human he saw was being chased by a creature that could have been their sick and twisted twin. Mizuki tried twice more to intervene, and once was actually successful—beating back a shrieking harpy off a crying woman who could have been his mother—but as soon as he did so the woman ran off without so much as looking at him. He called after her, but she didn’t even turn her head. It was though he was invisible to all his fellow humans, though the yokai could see him just fine.

He was halfway to Aoba’s when he encountered Noiz.

He didn’t recognize the kid, at first. What he recognized was the monster. Or, as he was now realizing was the more accurate description, Noiz’s nightmare. It was the yokai in the shape of a naked and bloodied young man that he’d seen before with Clear and Yukie, red welts criss-crossing his body and bound about with thick chains that creaked and groaned.

The bloody figure staggered towards Noiz, holding both hands out in what might have been beseechment, or warning, or threat. Noiz just stood there, watching the approaching phantom with wide eyes and a terrible expression on his face. He didn’t so much as move, frozen with fear or horror. The figure’s groping hands met Noiz’s arms, and instantly the chains whipped out, taking life like metallic snakes as they wrapped around Noiz and pulled him crushingly close against the phantom’s chest. Noiz cried out in terror, his face twisting in pain as lashes ripped open on his arms and neck, like invisible knives were cutting him open.

“Noiz!” yelled Mizuki, forgetting himself. He ran forward, dropping his weapon to try to pry the two apart, but before he could reach them the phantom seemed to melt away. Noiz staggered, dropping to his knees; the web of chains wrapped themselves around him more tightly, his clothing shredding away in front of Mizuki’s eyes. Mizuki grabbed ahold of one of the chains, trying to pull them off Noiz, but he might as well have tried to lift one of the walls of Platinum Jail: the damn thing wouldn’t budge. “Noiz, fight it! You have to fight it!” Noiz stared up at him, his eyes dull, expression smoothing over to something like resignation. The bloody lashes spread over his naked form, and underneath the tightening chains, bruises were already forming, skin chafing and rubbing raw. “ _Noiz!_ ”

“He can’t hear you,” said a new voice. Mizuki knew who it was before he’d even turned his head to look. He stepped back, pausing to scoop up his metal spar from the ground before turning to face the person responsible for Midorijima’s descent into insanity.

Sei stood before him. When Mizuki had seen him in life, he had been waifish, almost emaciated from long years indoor being made to exert his power. Now, standing in the weird dreamscape he’d finally made manifest, he was almost unrecognizable as that same sickly boy. He stood taller even than Trip, the set of his shoulders matching the white of porcelain skin, all the strength and emotion of purest alabaster. Instead of his own two arms, a goddess’ ten rose from his slim torso, his multitude of hands held out in graceful form, as though observing the moves of some very complicated dance. His gradient hair tumbled past his shoulders all the way to his waist, starting out deep blue at the roots and fading all the way out to white at the very tips.

His eyes were what gave him away. They were pure grey, the pupils nonexistent, swallowed up entirely by his insanity. It was like looking at a force of nature housed in a human form—all power and violence, but not a shred of answering soul.

“Hello, Sei,” said Mizuki warily. “What do you mean, he can’t hear me?”

“He’s in a lot of pain right now, for one thing,” Sei said conversationally. His voice was velvety dark, at odds with the vision of androgynous beauty he now presented. “But even if he wasn’t, you’re invisible to him. The only other person here who might be able to see you is my brother.”

“Thanks for trying to tell me how my own brain works,” Mizuki said. He gripped the metal spar in both hands, setting himself in a stance hip-width apart, like Sei was a pinata he was intent on knocking silly. “Let’s skip to the part where I persuade you to cut this crap out, by any means necessary.”

Sei smiled widely at him. “This isn’t just in your head, Mizuki,” he said. “This is in everyone’s head.”

“Whatever,” said Mizuki. “You still have to stop.” That news actually made a little more sense; Sei made Usui, who had governed Rhyme, which was after all just a shared section of virtual reality, so was it any kind of stretch for Sei to make another such place and then pull everyone into it?

Sei giggled. One of his many hands went to cover his mouth, deceptively coy. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m so close to giving everyone what they truly want! I can’t stop now.”

“Oh, yeah, because turning everyone into their own worst nightmare is _exactly_ what people want,” Mizuki said, through gritted teeth.

“Everyone except you,” said Sei. His smile faded. He fixed Mizuki with an intense gaze, and folded two hands in front of him as if in prayer, the other 8 still floating around him in their graceful dance. “You’re the null. Everyone I touch carries their demons inside them, waiting to be given life, but there is nothing in your heart but stone.”

“Your brother already did a number on me, so my ticket’s been stamped well enough, thanks,” snapped Mizuki. But despite himself, he shivered. Sei’s words rang in his ears like a benediction, too close to his own unvoiced worries about his dreamless sleep to be easily shaken off. Sei tilted his head, as though perfectly aware of what was going on inside Mizuki’s mind—and shit, maybe he was.

“It’s true,” Sei mused. “My brother used his gift on you. You’re the only one to ever recover being Scrapped like he did to you, you know. Perhaps that’s why…”

“Yeah, well, when I find Aoba, I’ll tell him thanks for vaccinating me against your weird bullshit,” said Mizuki. He hefted his spar, and pointed it squarely at Sei. “I already fought off all my own demons once, I’m not scared by yours. So cut it out. You’ve had your fun, now _stop._ ”

Another set of hands came together in front of Sei, fingers steepling at throat-level. Sei’s eyes seemed to glow, and that malevolent, barely-human smile reappeared. “Are you going to stop me?” he asked.

“Sure am,” said Mizuki. “This is your final warning, Sei. Release everyone!”

“Or what? You’ll hit me with your little metal stick?” Sei laughed, his voice darting up and down in a discordant arpeggio, and the sound sent a nasty shiver down Mizuki’s spine. “You’re welcome to try. In fact, let me give you some reinforcements to even things up. Since you’re so concerned about my brother…”

“What—” Before Mizuki could finish the question, a bright flare of light from the center of Sei’s torso forced him to throw his arm up, shielding his eyes from the glare. It vanished in moments, and Mizuki glanced quickly around, taking stock.

He was on the same street-corner, but Sei was gone. Noiz had toppled over during the stand-off, and was now curled on his side in the fetal position, his eyes open but unseeing, tears leaking down his cheeks. On Mizuki’s other side, where before had been just an empty street-corner, there now grappled two different pairs of people. Mizuki recognized half of each pair in an instant, but the second half left him so stunned that for a moment he couldn’t even move.

Aoba rolled on the ground, wrestling desperately with a ghastly version of himself. Instead of blue, the other Aoba’s hair and skin was the pure white of newfallen snow, but the awful smile that twisted his lips bore no resemblance to the boy Mizuki had grown up with. But Koujaku’s double was the worst Mizuki had seen so far, a monstrous, beast-like thing with a wild mane of red hair and yellowed fangs too large for its mouth. Instead of the artful sweep of ink up Koujaku’s arms and shoulders, livid red blooms seemed to erupt from the thing’s skin, like open sores. As Mizuki watched in horror, the monster launched itself at Koujaku with a snarl. Koujaku tried to raise his arm (where had his odachi gone, Mizuki wondered distantly), but was borne to the ground under the monster’s weight. Koujaku screamed in pain as the thing bit into his arm, shaking its head back and forth like a dog trying to break its prey’s neck.

The scream broke Mizuki’s paralysis, and he dashed forward, weapon raised. “ _No!_ ” He smashed his spar down across the monster’s back, and it snarled, dropping Koujaku’s arm from its fangs. It turned on Mizuki with a roar, lunging at him with both claws. “Koujaku!” Mizuki cried. He threw himself to the side, barely avoiding the vicious swipe of the monster’s claws and dropping his weapon in the process. “Help!”

“Koujaku!” The monster froze mid-lunge, his head whipping towards the source of the new voice. Mizuki looked up too, and saw to his dismay that his Aoba was gone, leaving only the white imposter standing in his place. “Koujaku,” the other Aoba repeated, and beckoning the monster towards him with a smile.

Mizuki scrambled to his feet, looking back at the spot where Koujaku had just been driven to ground only moments ago, but now that man was gone too, leaving only the monster behind. The monster in question loped over to Aoba, growling to himself, and greeted this whiter version of Aoba with teeth bared, sinking his fangs immediately into the white arm held out to meet him. The white Aoba cried out—but in pleasure, Mizuki realized abruptly, not in pain; his head tipped back, eyes shutting in apparent bliss, even as red blood gushed down from the bite mark in his arm, staining his white flesh.

“Fuck,” Mizuki said. He could only watched, as this monster that had taken Koujaku’s place went on to take another bite out of this washed-out Aoba, this time in his shoulder. Again Aoba moaned, raising both his hands to grip the monster’s arms, his face clouded with rapture.

“This is their true selves,” said Sei’s voice in Mizuki’s ear. Mizuki jerked around, but Sei’s figure had vanished. Instead, his voice seemed to come from all sides, or inside his own head. “They’re happier this way. So you see, I’m just giving them what they truly want.”

“Free life advice from a crazy person, what a bargain,” Mizuki snapped. He looked around, his stomach twisting, torn between running like hell and staying to try to help his friends. His gaze fell again on Noiz; with a lurch of horror, Mizuki saw that the ground beneath the kid had started to cave in, as though Noiz were over a sink-hole. Noiz was sinking slowly out of view, the net of chains around him still binding him tightly in place. Mizuki couldn’t even see his face anymore.

“Am I crazy?” mused Sei’s disembodied voice. “Maybe I am. But by that token, everyone here is crazy. Everyone but you.”

Something about that made Mizuki pause. _Everyone but you._

Not everyone was here, though. And if Sei _really_ wanted to hurt Mizuki, if he could really reach into Mizuki’s mind to see what was or wasn’t lurking in his soul, there was one person in particular who would be here right now. So either Sei couldn’t actually invoke the contents of Mizuki’s mind as well as he could everyone else’s, or he had deliberately left someone out.

“Whatever,” said Mizuki, as much to himself as to Sei. Without a second thought, he swept up his metal spar yet again and bolted from the clearing, forcing himself to ignore the growls and rapturous cries from behind him.

“Oh, by all means, run,” said Sei, sounding amused. “Distance means nothing here, but go ahead and wear yourself out!”

Mizuki ignored him. He ran flat-out, focusing every ounce of his attention on the one he wanted more than anything else to find. He pictured the details of Clear’s face, the two little moles by his mouth, his pretty pink eyes; the sound of his laugh, the way his lips had tasted when Mizuki kissed him. _Please don’t be gone by the time I find you,_ he thought, and the desperation it sparked in him gave his feet wings.

Mizuki ran. And within a scant minute, the one he sought appeared.

The figure before him was alone, instead of grappling with some weird double of himself. Mizuki’s heart twisted in his chest at the sight of him: Clear lay motionless, slumped against the side of a building; his gas-mask discarded on the ground beside him, his clothes torn, dirty, and in disarray. He was only half-sitting up, his spine at an awkward angle, and worst of all, he looked as though a wall had fallen on him—the armature of his right arm and shoulder was visible, the synthetic skin ripped away to expose the gears and metal wiring beneath. Part of his face looked burnt, his eye bulging unnaturally where it was no longer partly covered by the architecture of his skin. His other eye was shut, and he did not move as Mizuki ran up to him.

“Clear,” Mizuki breathed. He’d meant to urge Clear to come with him, to try to sing that gorgeous song of his again to wake Aoba and Koujaku and Noiz, but all such thoughts went right out of his head at the sight of his dearest friend. “Clear, baby, _no_ …” He crumpled to his knees, his metal spar clattering to the ground as he dropped it. Clear lay inert, unresponsive even when Mizuki reached out and touched his face—gingerly at first, and then cradling Clear’s cheek in his hand. His gorge rose in the back of his throat, falling out of his mouth as a sob.

Without thinking about it, he leaned forward and kissed the metal armature of Clear’s broken face, touching his fingers lightly over the framework, as tenderly as he wished he’d held him before. “Clear,” he whispered. “Clear, I’m—fuck, I am so sorry.”

He wasn’t sure Clear could even hear him. Maybe Clear wasn’t even really here. Maybe this really was all in his mind, Sei’s bid to drive Mizuki as insane as he no doubt was the rest of the island. But it no longer mattered. Before, the idea of what lay beneath Clear’s skin might have made him recoil. Now Mizuki knew, to his grief, just how _stupid_ that was of him.

“Clear, I’m sorry,” he said again, unsteadily. His vision blurred; now that he was this close, the faint smell of burnt plastic could be detected, and it occurred to him how much that must have hurt, the charred skin peeled back from Clear’s face, to say nothing of the damage the rest of him had endured. The thought cut him like a lash, raw and unbearable.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong, don’t leave me like this, don’t just give up!” He choked, and grabbed for Clear’s hand, the broken one with the metal beneath exposed. It seemed suddenly and brutally important to him, to make up in what little way he could for hurting Clear so badly. He held Clear’s hand in both of his own, rubbing his thumb over the metal rivet where a human’s thumb-joint would be. Then he raised it to his face, and kissed Clear’s shattered palm. Clear still didn’t move. “Clear…” Mizuki pulled Clear’s rag-doll frame against his chest, cradling him in both arms and pressing his cheek to Clear’s fried hair, tears slipping more quickly down his face as he started to moan. “Clear!”

This was his fault. This was all his fault. He knew it like he knew his own name. Clear’s pain had swallowed him up, and Mizuki hadn’t been here for him, hadn’t protected him. He’d been too busy letting his own bullshit get in the way of seeing the gift that had been put in front of him, too stone-hearted from his own ordeal to accept Clear as he was.

He was so upset that he didn’t even notice the change at first.

Mizuki shut his eyes, weeping quietly into Clear’s hair as he rocked Clear back and forth, and the pain in his chest was already so extreme that it took him a few moments to realize something else was wrong. He drew in a ragged breath, only to discover that his throat was tight, and so was his rib-cage, stiffening into place. Mizuki’s eyes went wide. He sat back on his heels, opening his eyes in confusion, and in that moment realized two things:

One, both of Clear’s eyes were open now, watching him. And two, his immunity to Sei’s fear-driven nightmares had just ended.

“Clear,” Mizuki said out loud, or tried to; to his horror, no sound came out, only a strained exhale of wind. Behind him came soft laughter. With a massive effort, Mizuki let Clear rest back against the wall, twisting himself around to see Sei standing over him again. But all his muscles were malfunctioning now, and he lost his balance and toppled over. He landed on his back, wheezing desperately for air as the mineralization of his lungs and chest increased, his body hardening into stone as he stared upside-down up at Sei’s malevolent smile.

“How good of you to do my work for me,” Sei said, stepping forward. He dropped into a graceful crouch, his many arms folding as he leaned over Mizuki’s increasingly inert frame. “I had thought you were going to take some time to bring around, but you went and did it yourself. Congratulations, Mizuki. You’re not broken after all.” His smile widened.

Mizuki couldn’t answer, could no longer even move. The change had spread out from his chest to his limbs, his body hardening into the same stone that had sheltered his heart for so long, locking him inside away from fears and joys alike. Mizuki could only stare up at Sei, feeling the change flowing up his neck to his face now, his jaw hardening, a film coming over his eyes, obscuring the sight of the madman watching him.

Here it was, his final swansong. After everything, this was how his light would go out: not with a bang, but a whimper. He’d managed to survive Toue’s incursion onto his island; he’d stayed put in the Old Resident District despite the push of blood-money and family guilt alike; he’d lived through Morphine’s treachery and the trauma of a shattered mind, but he couldn’t fight an enemy that came at him from inside himself like this.

Mizuki heard another voice then, and knew he had to be just imagining it, a balm in his last moments. “Stop hurting him,” said Clear’s voice.

“Oh,” said Sei after a moment, “you’re still awake, are you?” Mizuki’s vision darkened further, reducing the form above him to merely a dark shape against a slightly lighter background.

“Sei-san, I know you are in pain, but you have to stop this,” said Clear’s voice, stronger now. “I will not let you hurt him!”

Mocking laughter rang out. “And what good is a broken robot to anyone?” Sei asked.

“I may be broken, but I can still make you listen, Sei-san.” And then the next sound that came told Mizuki he really must be locked inside his own head dreaming of better things. It was the same song Clear sang that day in the alley outside Mizuki’s shop, bright and sweet and pure.

If Mizuki had been able to see himself in that moment, he would have been shocked to see the wet stripes of tears leaking down the dark grey stone of his cheeks, because he could no more feel anything on his skin than he could see through the murky film that obscured his sight. Then again, when it came to Clear, he was learning to take nothing for granted.

From the sound of it, Sei was learning the same lesson. “Stop that!” Sei said, trying to talk over Clear’s song. He sounded flustered now, instead of confident. “What are you doing? Stop that!”

Clear gave no response; if anything, he sang louder. And incredibly, the rigor mortis in Mizuki’s body started to fade. Sensation returned to his fingers, and then his face; his limbs tingled as though he’d slept on them wrong, and then with a gasp so loud it startled him to hear it, he drew breath into his lungs. Mizuki’s spine arched as his whole body seized at once, his muscles spasming in protest as soon as they were able. Above him, he heard Sei curse, but his eyes were watering so badly that he couldn’t see a fucking thing. He started coughing, rolling onto his side and curling up in the fetal position, clutching himself and trying to catch his breath.

A stray thought flickered across Mizuki’s frazzled mind, here and then gone: _I should be dead from how long I just went without breathing._ But of course, this was just a dream-scape, not the real world.

Abruptly, the song cut out. Mizuki blinked, struggling to get an arm under himself, and then Clear was there, crouched at his side and helping him to sit up. “Clear,” Mizuki said hoarsely, and grabbed for Clear’s arm like a drowning man.

“Mizuki-san, are you okay?” Clear was staring anxiously into Mizuki’s face, his hand on Mizuki’s shoulder. Clear looked just as badly damaged as he had when Mizuki first found him, and it wasn’t any less upsetting, but at least he was up and alert now. Distantly, Mizuki saw that his own hands were still a cold grey instead of their normal dark brown, smooth now in texture like the surface of river rocks.

Not important. “I’ll be fine,” Mizuki grated out. He sucked in another needle-sharp breath. “You—you saved me.”

“You saved _me_ ,” Clear said immediately. He smiled, his peeling face warming somehow. The sight hurt like the air in Mizuki’s lungs hurt, vital and important and at once so painful.

“The hell I did,” said Mizuki. “I fucked up so bad, Clear, I’m so fucking sorry, I was so horrible to you—”

“Mizuki-san—”

“I said all those awful things and I’m so fucking sorry, I was wrong, and—”

“Mizuki-san, look out!” Clear grabbed him in both arms and yanked him to one side, just in time to save him from having his head smashed in by the lumbering Frankenstein’s creature that brought its heavy hands down onto the spot occupied by Mizuki until just moments ago. Mizuki tumbled over into Clear’s lap, twisting quickly around to take stock of the new threat.

He saw several things very quickly: One, Sei had vanished again, and Mizuki was willing to bet that their favorite nightmare-mongerer wasn’t very happy; two, the alley they were in was filling quickly with new and assorted monstrosities, no doubt sent to end the unexpected threat Clear posed; and three, there was no fucking way he was letting anyone lay a finger on Clear.

“Clear,” Mizuki said, trying to get to his feet and simultaneously back him and Clear away from the monster, “can you keep singing? I think it’s the only thing that can fix this.”

Clear nodded. “I will try, Mizuki-san.”

“Good.” If he’d gotten his head out of his ass a little sooner, Mizuki might have put two and two together and suggested they have Clear sing to Sei to try to wake him from his psychotic sleep, but Mizuki had been a little occupied. And, okay, more than a little stupid, but— “Clear!”

“No!” Clear cried at the same time. The patchwork monster lunged to attack him again, and Clear threw himself sideways, out of the way. Mizuki bellowed in rage and dove at the thing like a rugby tackle, hitting it in its center of mass and bearing it to the ground. “Don’t you fucking _touch_ him!” He drew his arm back and slammed his still-stone fist into the thing’s throat, watching with grim satisfaction as it gagged and retched.

Mizuki climbed off the monster, sweeping his weapon up from the ground and looking to Clear, who was watching him with wide eyes. “Go for it, Clear,” he said, and grinned, slapping his weapon against his opposite palm. “I’ll cover your back.”

Clear stared a moment longer, and then broke into that wide, sweet smile of his, the warmth dampened not at all by his damaged face. “Okay, Mizuki-san!” He took a deep breath, letting his hands fall to his sides again, and then, without preamble, he opened his mouth and started once more to sing. Angelic music filled the air, and the advancing monsters all seemed to hesitate, dazed at the sound of it. Mizuki gripped his metal spar like a power hitter preparing to hit a homerun, and waded into the fray.

He didn’t know if it was the power Clear’s song, or just the renewed hope singing through his veins at finding Clear again, but Mizuki moved like his body were made of electricity, not stone. Clear’s pure voice filled his ears, and the yokai (or nightmares, or damned, whoever they were) fell like straw men, screeching angrily at him as he knocked them down. Mizuki cut a circle around Clear, careful to not let anything get too close to his friend, running to and fro as the horde descended ever more slowly on them. He was careful not to hit any of them _too_ hard—he wasn’t sure how many of the monsters were people in the grips of transformation—but soon he wasn’t even having to work that hard at stopping them, because the monsters were stopping on their own.

Mizuki slowed, watching the nearest one—up on two legs like a human, but too shaggy and canine in the face to qualify—shamble to a halt, watching Clear in confusion. It made a noise like a frustrated dog, reaching up with both paws to touch its face. Then it crumpled forward onto all fours, and the fur that covered its body sloughed off its frame like it was shedding in fast-forward. Huge clumps of black fur fell off at a time, the unnaturally huge shoulders and canine muzzle melting away like snow in a spring melt. In a matter of maybe thirty seconds, a man in a blue kimono with hair pulled back in a ponytail was blinking as though waking from a deep sleep.

He knew the guy. Holy fuck, he _knew_ that poor bastard. He was one of Koujaku’s Ribmates. And all around him, the other monsters were melting and disappearing—some (presumably summoned by Sei) actually blowing away in the wind, others burning off to reveal disoriented humans underneath. Mizuki stood in the center of the mass of reappearing humanity, Clear’s sweet, aching song still filling his ears and purifying him just like it was every man, woman, and child within hearing distance. The very air around them seemed to flicker with light, as though rarefied by Clear’s beautiful voice.

No, Mizuki realized abruptly: not _just_ that. It really was getting brighter. He looked up, straight up at the sky overhead, and felt his jaw fall open at the sight that greeted his eyes. Bright sunlight was opening up above them, the darkness fleeing in a rapidly widening circle as daylight chased it away. The shadow that had swallowed up the island for so long was at last receding.

Mizuki swallowed, throat tight. “Clear,” he heard himself say, as though listening to someone else speaking, “don’t stop.” 

He stood there with Clear at the center of the concentric circles of metamorphing souls, gripping his metal spar in both hands. He wanted badly to drop his weapon and go to Clear, to wrap his arms around Clear and bury his face in Clear's soft silver hair, but he couldn't give in to the temptation yet. Everything in sight was in the grips of transformation, no longer a threat to anyone but themselves, but Mizuki couldn't let himself relax his guard until he saw the person who most desperately needed Clear's song. Sei was still nowhere to be found.

A scream of pure rage erupted from Mizuki's left, and he spun, raising his weapon automatically. But the sight that greeted him was so nonsensical that for a moment his brain couldn't even process it.

Sei crouched at a point perhaps 200 yards away, at what should have been the edge of the public square. But while the effects of Clear's song had been expanding steadily outwards, pushing out the storm like the eye of a hurricane, the effects stopped abruptly ten feet out from Sei, and beneath him opened a chasm. Sei's feet stood on empty space above a roaring vortex of blue-and-black.... water? Clouds? All around him was a weird darkness, like the inverse of man holding a lantern aloft in a darkened room. Sei's darkness was a living thing, licking and pulsing against the steadily increasing clarity of the world around him. His many arms and the deathly white of his skin gave him a ghastly look, and his face was worse: his dark hair fell across his pallid face, barely masking his too-wide eyes, like a vengeful _onryo_.

"Stop," said Sei. It sounded everywhere at once, like a voice-over in a movie, echoing loudly in Mizuki's ears. For a moment, Clear's song faltered, and the darkness around Sei intensified, pulsing like a cloud of squid ink. Mizuki put out his hand to grip Clear's shoulder, holding him tight, and after a few seconds Clear's song resumed, gaining in strength. 

Sei snarled, his whole body twisting in on itself as his darkness started to collapse inward. "Please, stop!" he cried, and the sudden agony in his voice was real. 

"Sei, let go!" Mizuki yelled. "You'll feel better!" 

"How dare you rob me like everyone else has?" Sei's voice burned in his ears, aggrieved, almost pleading. "I'm finally strong! I can do what I want now! Don't make me go back, I'll never give it up—”

"You're hurting everyone! Don't do this, don't be like Toue!" Mizuki found himself leaning into Clear without even realizing it, anchoring himself and Clear at the same time, planting his feet wide and bracing against a rising wind. Mizuki dropped his metal spar, wrapping both arms around Clear now instead to keep him steady. Clear shut his eyes, his song never wavering as the wind around them howled. "You can be strong! You're better than this! Sei, you have to—"

He never got the chance to finish. The decibel of the wind jumped from “storm” to “hurricane,” ripping the words from his mouth. Mizuki yelled in shock, clinging to Clear even as he squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught; he could feel Clear’s arms wrapped tightly over his own, and his only thought was that if this was how it ended, at least he could die knowing he had tried to make things right. The storm howled, ripping at his arms and legs with greedy fingers, so loud it blotted out reason, drowned out all thought.

Then, all at once, it stopped.

For a second Mizuki actually thought he’d just gone deaf, or blacked out. He kept his eyes squeezed shut for a few moments more, then cautiously cracked one, peering at their surroundings. “Shit,” he said, and straightened up, opening both eyes, arms still around Clear’s shoulders. They now stood in the center of the same public square, totally devoid of people and monsters alike. Overhead, the sun shone bright, as clear and carefree as the finest day in spring. 

He felt Clear take a deep breath—and what a robot needed with a deep breath, Mizuki didn’t know, and no longer did he care—before he turned around in the circle of Mizuki’s arms. Mizuki looked up again to find himself staring into Clear’s once-more perfect face. No doubt his own form had likewise returned to normal.

“Everyone left,” Clear said quietly. 

“You did that,” said Mizuki. “You woke them up. You’re amazing.” Clear smiled at that, a little shy and a little nervous, as though afraid someone was going to speak up to contradict this statement. Mizuki cleared his throat, trying to call to mind the careful apology he’d come up with when he’d first gone looking for Clear, but before he could find the words, movement over Clear’s shoulder caught his eye. “Look out!”

Mizuki pulled Clear behind him, putting himself squarely in the path of danger, but the slim figure that had just appeared in front of him only smiled. “I realize it sounds suspicious, coming from me,” said Sei—and it _was_ Sei now, pale of skin and petite of form, looking like he maybe raided Noiz’s closet for clothes. Most reassuring of all, the sanity had returned to his eyes, the grey irises now centered once more by his pupils. “But I’m not here to hurt you. I wanted to thank you.”

“Sei-san!” Clear exclaimed, stepping up by Mizuki’s shoulder. Mizuki grabbed for his arm to keep him close. “You look normal again!”

Sei folded his hands in front of him and inclined his head. Mizuki could hardly believe the difference that had come over him. Where before had been nothing but malevolence deep enough to drown in, there now was a boy that gave even Clear a run for his title of “most angelic face in the history of time.” (Of course, Mizuki was a little biased.)

“Toue-san always said that I was his most precious creation, like the son he never had,” said Sei. Mizuki’s stomach turned, and pushed the reaction away. “But he must not have realized you existed, Clear. Or he never knew the gift you have inside you.”

“His loss,” said Mizuki. “Our gain. Thank fuck.” Clear shot Mizuki a swift, warm glance, but said nothing to this.

Sei smiled. “It’s true. And I am so grateful to you both for helping return me to myself.” A shadow passed over Sei’s face, like a memory of some terrible pain, and despite the hell this one small boy had just visited on Mizuki and everything he held dear, he couldn’t quite stifle an answering pang.

“You are welcome, Sei-san!” said Clear warmly. “I am so happy you are not in pain anymore!”

“You’re welcome,” said Mizuki too, after a moment of reluctance. Damn Seragakis.

Once more, Sei inclined his head. “I have more questions I’d like to ask you—both of you—but I can hear Aoba calling me, so I’m afraid they will have to wait. I will return you to the waking world, and destroy this artifact, so that everyone can be free.” He bowed low, and again Mizuki was struck by how much this more sane version of Sei reminded him of Clear in some fundamental way.

“Hey,” he began, but it was already too late; Sei raised both his hands, and luminescence filled the air around them, as though Sei had summoned the Northern Lights. Clear gasped, grabbing for Mizuki in shock, and the two of them clung to each other as the brightness grew, and grew, to the point where it obscured everyone and everything, and yet somehow did not burn or hurt the eyes. “Clear!” Mizuki yelled. “CLEAR!”

Then the world exploded, and everything went dark.

* * * * *

“—CLEAR!” Mizuki sat up in bed like he’d been shot, blinking rapidly in the empty room. It was dark. Too dark; he scowled, shutting his eyes and jamming the heels of his palms against the lids to try to coax his rods and cones into cooperating. Shimmering lights danced behind his eyes, and Mizuki wasn’t sure if they were the product of his scrambled brain, or the memory of that unearthly brightness.

God, had that really happened? Could it actually have just been a dream? Mizuki opened his eyes, blinking a few more times as he slowly adjusted to the early pre-dawn light that was filtering in through his window. No. That was real, wasn’t it? And if it was—

“Clear,” he said again, and scrambled out of bed. He almost fell flat on his face, his legs tangled in the bedsheets, but managed to gain his footing after a few moments. Mizuki got to the door of his bedroom and hesitated.

He still had no idea where Clear was. But… Some faint whisper of—intuition, or something like it, made him turn. He hesitated only a few more moments before grabbing his jacket and then yanking open his window, climbing out onto the fire escape. Instead of letting himself down to the alley floor below, though, he straightened and reached up for the gutter that lined his building’s rooftop, and with a grunt of effort, he hauled himself up and then scrambled up the ledge.

He didn’t know if it was some faint memory, something Clear had told him, or some lingering suggestion from Sei. He didn’t know _what_ made him go up to the roof. But he crawled up to the very top, and then turned his face towards the north, where the huge walls of Platinum Jail still arched up over the horizon line of the island. Electric lights glittered over the darkened plane of the Old Resident District, like a sea of bioluminescent marine life. Mizuki thought of Clear’s jellyfish, and smiled.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. The early morning chill was not inconsiderable, and up here there was a pretty stiff breeze coming in from the direction of the ocean. Mizuki shivered in his jacket over his t-shirt and pajama pants, doubting himself already. Then something sparkled in the distance—a glint of silver, here and gone, catching and reflecting one of the sodium-arc streetlights. Mizuki’s heart leapt, and he inched closer to the edge, straining his eyes to see.

Again he saw it, a glint of light, movement in the morning grey. After a few more moments, he was sure. Mizuki straightened in elation, raising both his arms and waving them wildly. “Clear!” he yelled, not giving a fuck about waking the neighbors, or attracting whoever else might already be awake on the streets down below. “CLEAR!”

He heard the answering cry, saw the figure on the distant rooftops raise a hand in return and move a little faster. Mizuki edged as close to the edge of the roof as he dared, watching in amazement as Clear sprinted from rooftop to rooftop towards him, leaping from each precarious edge as lightly as a bird taking flight. Now he was only a hundred yards away; now fifty; now he was on the next building, running towards Mizuki at top speed. “Mizuki-san!”

“Clear!” Mizuki cried. The word stuck in his throat, full of everything he wished he could take back, everything he needed to say. Clear made the last impossible leap from the next building over to the top of Mizuki’s building, and then vaulted straight into Mizuki’s open arms, nearly toppling both of them right off the roof. “ _Oof!_ ”

Then his arms were full of a warm, trembling body, Clear’s arms tight around Mizuki’s neck, Clear’s hair in his nose. “Mizuki-san, I am so mad at you,” Clear said in a rush, and Mizuki felt a noise bubble out of his throat, something between a laugh and a sob.

“I know,” he said, and hugged Clear back just as tightly. “I know, baby, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Good,” said Clear. “ _Good._ ”

Mizuki needed to apologize, to ask for forgiveness, to beg for a second chance; they both needed to go visit Aoba and the others, see if the nightmare really was truly over. But when Clear leaned up and kissed him, there was absolutely nothing Mizuki could do but kiss him back.

Everything else would wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An onryo is a type of ghost that might sound familiar to you, especially if you've ever seen "The Grudge" (or, to a lesser extent, "Ringu" or its American remake, "The Ring"). They are a specific type of ghost, and you can read about them [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onry%C5%8D) and [here](http://yokai.com/onryou/).


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's working title was "feels and porn." This is the chapter that gives the fic its "E" rating ~~god finally~~. Also, you're not imagining things; there is still ONE MORE CHAPTER to be posted after this, an epilogue. This chapter got so long that I finally decided to break it into two, and the epilogue will be posted within a few days. Thanks so much for reading! And thanks, as always, to my wonderful betas/supporters, joannaestep and circ_bamboo!!

Later, Mizuki would barely be able to remember how they got back downstairs without him falling to his premature-but-happy death off the side of the building. His fingers weren’t working very well, too long out in the chilly morning air, but Clear managed to help him clamber down from the eavestrough and back onto the fire-escape without actually falling and cracking open his head. They crawled back in the open window, Mizuki once again barely managing basic motor skills, both due to his cramped and chilly fingers and due to the fact that he didn’t actually want to let go of Clear long enough to haul himself over the window ledge.

“Mizuki-san, your fingers are so cold,” Clear said, clambering inside after him.

“Yeah, yeah, they’ll warm up,” said Mizuki. He got to his feet again, reaching past Clear to shut the window behind him anyway. He was desperately hoping for at least the chance to get to _hold_ Clear, and he didn’t want to be distracted by the chill.

Shutting the window also put him right in front of Clear. “Hi,” said Mizuki softly, looking slightly down into Clear’s face; they were almost the same height. Clear smiled at him, at once bashful and so serene.

“Mizuki-san,” he said after a moment, “should we check on Aoba-san and the others?”

As if he could still read some small whisper of Mizuki’s mind, Clear’s mouth twisted into a small moue as he said this, as visibly unenthused by the suggestion as Mizuki felt. Mizuki spared a few moments to feel his heart sink at the re-direction. Then he thought about the white shadow of himself Aoba had turned into, thought of the hulking monster Koujaku had become, and his stomach turned a little.

“Yeah, we better,” he said. He slipped his hand into Clear’s gloved one again and sat down with him on the bed, reaching out with his other hand to dig his much-abused Coil out of the pocket he’d left it in. He wrote up a quick message to Aoba: _Are you guys all right?_

The message returned gratifyingly quick: _Yeah, we’re good. Sei is awake. Was that Clear?_

“He is okay?” Clear asked. Mizuki tilted the Coil so that Clear could read the message too, and couldn’t help but smile as Clear leaned against him with a relieved sigh. _That was Clear. He’s here now._

The next message came back even quicker, just one word: _APOLOGIZE._

“Aoba-sannnnn…” Mizuki laughed at the dismay in Clear’s voice; out of the corner of his eyes he could see Clear covering his face with both hands.

“I deserved that,” he told Clear, and then sent one last message back to Aoba: _I’m on it. See you later._ Then he put his Coil away, and turned his attention back to the most important person in his whole world.

“Clear,” he began, and then stopped. Clear dropped his hands to his lap again, his face softening a little as Mizuki stared at him, struggling to find the right words. Finally, Mizuki gave up. “I am so fucking sorry,” he said helplessly, and reached for one of Clear’s hands, taking it in both of his own.“I said such awful things to you, and it was so fucking stupid of me.”

He thought longingly of Clear surprising him in his kitchen (god, was that really just earlier this week?), naked save for his apron. He stroked his thumbs over the backs of Clear’s gloved hands, remembering how soft his skin had been the last time Mizuki had touched it—and how damaged it had been in the dream-scape. 

“Do you still feel that way, though?” Clear’s expression sobered. “Toue-san and Morphine hurt you very badly, and I know you do not like robotics. If that is too much for you to, then…” He trailed off, and the anxiety in his voice was so awful to hear that Mizuki all but tripped over his tongue in his haste to reply.

“ _No_ ,” he said immediately. “No. Clear, I was wrong. I was—scared, and angry, and I just….” He took a deep breath, and when it came rushing out of his lungs he sent all his remaining hang-ups with it. No room here to hold back any longer. Not if he wanted to keep Clear.

“I didn’t realize how much I cared about you until I found out you were a robot,” he said finally. “And it was so dumb of me, because you tried to tell me how you felt, and show me that I didn’t have to worry, and—and I wouldn’t believe you.” This was it. The part he was most ashamed of. Clear was watching him with huge eyes, his expression very intense. “I think I was just… so scared that you would turn out like everything else I loved, and you would just end up being another disappointment. And I couldn’t handle having my heart broken again.”

At the word _love_ , Clear made a wet noise, barely there, like a small hurt animal. “Mizuki-san…” His voice was suspiciously rough.

“Please give me another chance,” Mizuki said unevenly. “I don’t care that you’re a robot. I want you exactly the way you are. I’ll do it right this time, I swear.” He squeezed Clear’s hand in both of his, staring desperately into Clear’s eyes.

Clear swallowed. Whoever had designed him, Toue or one of his engineers, he’d done a damn fine job making sure that Clear could look just as upset and affected as any human would in his position. Mizuki was finding it hard to be sad about it. “I’m still mad at you,” he said after a moment, and Mizuki’s heart sank. “But I love you so much, Mizuki-san. I w-want to be with you, too.”

Before Mizuki could even think of an answer past the explosion going on in his head, his arms were full again, Clear crawling into his lap. Clear’s arms went around Mizuki’s neck, Mizuki clinging to Clear like a drowning man, his throat too tight for him to even speak. He kissed the top of Clear’s head, his nose full of the warm lavender scent of Clear’s hair, his eyes stinging. “I love you,” he whispered against Clear’s scalp. Clear made another noise, and his arms around Mizuki’s neck tightened.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that. The world outside was waking up from its long nightmare, but Mizuki had finally found the thing he’d been looking for, and he wasn’t going to let anyone or anything distract him from it. After awhile, he kicked the bedding open and crawled into it, both of them shedding their shoes and coats and crawling in together fully-clothed.

Mizuki opened his mouth to tell Clear just how gorgeous he looked with the morning light in his hair ( _you’ll look even better when you take off your pants!_ —what the hell, was he turning into Koujaku here?) but what came out was a huge yawn. Clear gave him a thoughtful look. “Mizuki-san,” he said after a moment, “you look very tired. Maybe you should sleep.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘Mizuki-san’ anymore, you know,” Mizuki observed, while he was busily thinking of some rebuttal. “We’re dating now. You don’t have to be so formal.”

He punctuated this insightful observation with another stentorian yawn, and Clear smiled. “Mizuki-sannnn…”

“Okay, okay, you’re … probably right. I’ll take a nap, I guess.” Mizuki slipped his arm around Clear, tugging him close. “Just for a little while. But you’ll stick around, yeah?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Clear said firmly, and settled in against him. They wriggled around until they lay against each other like interlocking puzzle-pieces: Clear’s head on Mizuki’s shoulder, Mizuki’s knee tucked between Clear’s thighs, Mizuki’s arm slung around Clear’s waist, Clear’s arms tucked peacefully between their chests.

Napping was the very last thing Mizuki wanted to do—Clear was every bit as attractive to him now as he had been before, if not more—but as much as he hated to admit it, he was fucking exhausted. Three days of drinking and mourning was about as restful as living above a metal band’s practice room, and last night might have been a dream or it might have been real, but it sure as fuck wasn’t relaxing. Mizuki was running on empty. And so despite the warm and wonderful person curled against his chest, Mizuki was asleep within minutes.

When he woke, the light coming in through the window was the bright yellow of midday. Otherwise, literally nothing had changed; his arms were still full of Clear. He opened his eyes to find Clear gazing at him with a curiously anxious expression on his face. When he saw Mizuki looking back at him, his anxiety melted away like a shadow in the noonday sun. “Hey there, gorgeous,” Mizuki said mildly. “You gonna sit there and stare at me, or you gonna kiss me awake like Sleeping Beauty?”

Flustered, Clear jumped a little and colored as though Mizuki had caught him doing something naughty. “I am sorry, Mizuki-s—Mizuki.” MIzuki smiled at that correction, and after a moment Clear recovered enough to smile back. He looked so sweet that Mizuki had to lean in and kiss his mouth, sucking gently on his full lower lip. Clear made a soft noise of surprise and then kissed him back, one of his gloved hands rising to cradle Mizuki’s face.

Before, Mizuki would have left it at that and let the apology lie. Instead, after a few more moments of kissing, he pulled reluctantly back and peered at Clear, checking to see how he was doing. “Why were you apologizing?” he asked.

The sheepish expression returned. “Ahhhh… Aoba-san and Koujaku-san have told me I have some bad habits I need to break,” Clear said after a moment. Mizuki eyed him.

“Come on,” he said gently, when after another moment it became obvious that Clear was reluctant to tell him something. “It’s okay. You can tell me, I promise I won’t freak out this time.” He was going to be paying his dues over his asshole behavior for awhile, but he was more than willing to put in the time if it meant he got to keep his second chance at having Clear.

Clear sighed, dropping his gaze. “It frightens me when humans sleep,” he said finally. “It’s—so much like death. What if you don’t wake up?”

Mizuki stared. That… wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “So, wait, were you just watching me while I slept the whole time?” Clear nodded. Mizuki let out a breath, attempting to wrest some of his brain function back from his half-hard dick as he thought for a moment. 

Something occurred to him. “Did your grandfather die in his sleep?” Again, Clear nodded, his eyes flicking back up to meet Mizuki’s now.

Well, that made some sense, at least. “I think Aoba and Koujaku are right,” Mizuki said. “It’s kinda morbid to sit here and watch me in case I die in my sleep, baby.”

“I know,” said Clear nervously. “Aoba-san said that too. He and Koujaku-san were very unhappy when they found out I was watching them sleep.”

That startled Mizuki into a laugh. “I just bet they were,” he said. “That’s okay. We can work on it. You’ll be happier if you don’t do that to yourself, anyway. But don’t worry about it, okay?” He patted Clear’s shoulder, watching some of the embarrassment smooth out of Clear’s features, though he still looked too self-conscious for Mizuki’s tastes. “Why don’t we go and get some food, yeah? And you can tell me more about your Grandpa, if you want.”

Clear finally gave him a real smile at that. “Okay,” he said, and to Mizuki’s great joy he punctuated his agreement by leaning in to give Mizuki another kiss. Heat shot down Mizuki’s spine, arousal blooming in his stomach like a flowering plant. He was suddenly very sorry that he’d just suggested they go eat something and talk about dead relatives. _Have some patience, you jackass,_ he told himself sternly, and followed Clear out of bed and down the hall to the kitchen.

As it turned out, he was glad he did. Not just because it was the right thing to do, but because once prompted to start talking about himself, Clear overflowed. Mizuki made the one breakfast he was really good at (scrambled eggs with vegetables and toast) and sat Clear at the table, mostly just listening, interjecting here and there with a question or comment he couldn’t quite hold back. He’d done the same with some of his Rib mates before, invited them in under the guise of a favor or a meal and just let them unload. It was amazing how often people just needed someone to listen to them, and it was fucking sad that Mizuki hadn’t realized that that was Clear wanted as well, at least in part.

Several things became abundantly obvious: One, even taking into account Clear’s obvious bias, Clear’s grandfather had been an extraordinary man fully deserving of the adoration Clear still held for him. Mizuki made a mental note to bring flowers and a helping of heartfelt thanks to the old man’s grave, if Clear felt like sharing its location with him. (He was gratified and saddened to learn that his grandfather’s grave had where Clear had sought refuge after Mizuki had broken his heart. It made sense, although Mizuki couldn’t have known it at the time, couldn’t have known where Clear had gone to—had thought only that Clear had gone beyond his reach, never to return. )

Two, Clear was lonely. Lonely in a way that a child who has never had friends and thus doesn’t truly know they’re missing is lonely, but lonely nonetheless. Listening to Clear tell him how one of his earliest attempts at making friends with strangers had ended in embarrassment, all Mizuki could think was how isolating it had to be to have literally no one else on earth who shared the same set of experiences as you. (“They wanted somewhere to be alone so they could have sex, and I was just trying to help them find somewhere good!” Clear said sorrowfully; Mizuki choked on his tea, torn between laughing helplessly and hugging Clear for the next hour.)

Worst of all, though, was the discovery of the fact that _literally no one_ had ever given Clear the sort of unconditional love he clearly craved. Even his grandfather had always warned him to wear his mask, instilling in him that lingering anxiety about his appearance. And Aoba was a good friend, but the sting of unrequited first love was hard enough for the average human with zero hang-ups to bear, to say nothing of Clear and his baggage.

And then there was Mizuki, who had been entirely too vocal about exactly what was unacceptable in Clear. _I am such a piece of trash,_ Mizuki thought. Clear finished a rambling story about a trip to the aquarium, and Mizuki paused, cocking his head as something occurred to him. “Hey, Clear,” he said.

“Yes, Mizuki-san?” Clear winced as soon as the word left his mouth, and Mizuki smiled and dropped a kiss on his cheek.

“There was a mirror in your grandpa’s house,” he said. “It—was it important? Because when I came to look for you, it…”

Clear’s expression faded. “It was my grandfather’s,” he said after a moment. His gaze dropped, angled at his hands. “He always kept it covered…”

Mizuki’s heart sank. Unbidden, the mental image sprang to mind of Clear’s tear-stained face reflected in a thousand fractured pieces of glass, scattered all around him on the floor. Mizuki set the dirty dishes in the sink, and then came over to sit by Clear again at the table. Clear had taken his gloves off to eat breakfast, but they were laced together in his lap now, his shoulders soft and slightly hunched, eyes directed down at his lap. “Did you break it?” Mizuki asked gently. Clear nodded without looking up. Mizuki bit the inside of his mouth.

“Clear,” he said, “listen to me for a sec, okay?” Clear’s eyes flickered up to Mizuki’s face then, though his posture did not change. “I am so sorry that I made you feel bad enough about yourself to break it, but you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Really.”

“But now it’s destroyed,” Clear protested.

“Yeah, and it’s _my_ fault. You have nothing to feel bad about.” Mizuki smiled crookedly at him.

Clear did not return the smile. “It was wrong,” Clear said after a moment. “It was special to him, and I broke it.”

“Clear…” Mizuki took a deep breath. “I guarantee that no matter how much he cared about the mirror, your grandpa cared more about you being safe and happy.” And Mizuki had done a complete shit job of looking out for _that_ so far, but he’d do better. He would. “He’d be really proud of you, I bet. You helped save everyone on this island, and you woke up Sei. And you did it even though I hurt you really bad.”

That earned him a smile, finally. “I did,” said Clear with a touch of pride. “I told you I was more than what Toue-san made me to be, Mizuki.”

“No shit,” said Mizuki, and reached over to take one of Clear’s hands again, giving it a squeeze. “I have never been so glad to be wrong in my life. You’re amazing.”

Clear smiled wider, and returned his squeeze, raising Mizuki’s hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. Mizuki had to suppress a shiver, reaching out with his other hand to pick up his mug of now-lukewarm tea. “Does this mean you still want to have sex with me, Mizuki?” Clear asked, and Mizuki choked.

It didn’t take him long to recover, though. “Yes, I definitely still want to have sex with you, Clear,” said Mizuki firmly, because _I want to bang you like a screen door in a hurricane_ and _I would hit that ass like the fist of an angry God_ were great one-liners over beers with Koujaku, but they had zero place in the face of Clear’s earnestness.

Clear beamed. Mizuki set his mug down, and leaned over to kiss Clear’s smiling mouth. “I think we should go back to the bedroom,” Mizuki murmured.

“Yes! Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot!” Clear bounded out of his seat, all but running down the hallway back to the bedroom in search of whatever it was he was looking for. Mizuki followed more sedately, torn between equal parts bemusement and arousal. When he caught up, Clear was bent over his discarded jacket, going through the pockets. He straightened up momentarily, brandishing a folded piece of paper triumphantly. “Found it!”

“What is it?” Mizuki held out his hand. Clear passed him the paper, and they sat down together on the bed, hip-to-hip. The sheet of paper was folded into four squares, and Mizuki unfolded it and smoothed it out, to see that a long, itemized list was written on it in Clear’s careful handwriting. Mizuki scanned through the contents, and then glanced at Clear, raising an eyebrow. “Clear, is this a … a list of sex things you want to try?”

“Yes!” Clear clasped his hands together, watching Mizuki closely for his reaction. _Oh my god, you are so cute_ , Mizuki thought, and gave Clear the answer he was looking for by way of leaning over and grabbing him for another hard kiss. Clear made a noise into his mouth, and then leaned in, kissing back eagerly. Mizuki slid his tongue along their lips, and Clear opened his mouth with a moan; he might be a robot, but against Mizuki’s lips he was warm and sweet-tasting and so hot that he wasn’t gonna have any brain-cells left for much longer. Mizuki pulled him closer, his hand sliding down Clear’s spine to rest, proprietary, at the small of his back.

Finally Mizuki broke away, long enough to pull back and catch Clear’s gaze, grinning faintly at him. “I love you,” he said, and took a moment to savor the way Clear’s face lit up at those words. “I love that you made a list of things you want to try with me. And I wanna try them all. But let’s just pick one or two to start with, yeah? There’s no rush.”

Some of the things on Clear’s list would need some minor modifications—there was a couple where their mutual lack of breasts would present an interesting challenge, and Mizuki would have to look into some quality rope if Clear was serious about the shibari—but Mizuki had never shied away from anything his partners had wanted to try. He might have his hang-ups, but the bedroom wasn’t where they lay.

“Okay,” said Clear, a little breathlessly. His face had gone gratifyingly pink, an appealing flush spreading through his throat and clavicle. Mizuki wanted to take him apart, piece by piece, and listen to the noises he made as he disintegrated under Mizuki’s hands and mouth. “Where should we start?”

“How about you take a shower with me?” Mizuki would have suggested this even if it wasn’t literally the second item on Clear’s list. Especially since one of the later items on the list would really work better with the both of them good and clean.

“Yes! I would like that!” Clear beamed, actually bouncing a little on the bed in excitement. God, he was going to make Mizuki just burst into flames, he was so hot. Mizuki had never met anyone who was simultaneously so naive and enthusiastic, like a virgin who had aced his Sex Acts 405 course and was just itching to put his new knowledge into action.

“Okay, baby,” Mizuki said, and kissed Clear again for good measure. “It’s a deal.” He set Clear’s list on the bedside table, then grabbed Clear’s hand and dragged him down the hallway to the bathroom. Clear hurried alongside him, fingers laced tightly with Mizuki’s, that sweet flush still warming his cheeks and his bitten lips, making Mizuki’s half-hard cock thicken in his pants.

Clear had another surprise in store for him, however. They got to the bathroom, which was a simple bachelor-pad affair with a combined shower/tub and a black-and-white decor, and Mizuki shut the door, already burning with the prospect of seeing Clear fully naked. He took the liberty of helping Clear out of his shirt, and then his pants, fumbling a little because Clear kept kissing him and Mizuki was hardly going to turn him away.

It took him a second, therefore, to notice exactly what was waiting for him in Clear’s pants. He had his own pants shoved halfway down his thighs when his eyes fell on Clear’s full nudity for the first time, and he was so surprised that he actually lost his balance and toppled over. “Oof!”

“Mizuki-san!” Clear was at his side instantly, crouching next to him with a worried expression on his face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, sorry—” Mizuki let Clear help him up, but now he couldn’t stop staring. “Uh, it’s just...”

“Is something wrong? Is something wrong with the way I look?” Clear sounded more anxious now, not less, and Mizuki mentally slapped himself for being such a prick.

“Baby, _no_ , no, you look amazing,” he said hastily. “It’s just—” Clear’s eyes got wide again. Fuck. “You have a really big dick,” Mizuki said, lamely.

He was understating it, a little. Clear’s dick was _huge_. Like, porn-star huge. It was honestly ridiculous.

“Is it too big?” Clear’s eyes were still set on ‘panic attack’ wide—hell of a thing to be anxious about, Mizuki thought.

“No, no, no—Clear, it’s—” Mizuki reached out, taking Clear’s shoulders in his hands and giving an encouraging squeeze. “No, you’re fine. You’re really fine. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” He smiled, reassuringly, and kissed Clear to prove his point, lingering until Clear had relaxed a little under his hands, had eased enough to lean into Mizuki and hug him back. “You’re beautiful,” Mizuki murmured, sliding his hand up to cup the back of Clear’s head, threading through his soft silver hair.

Mizuki finished getting undressed, leaning over to turn on the shower. Clear pressed up against him from behind, hugging Mizuki and pressing his face against Mizuki’s spine. “You smell so good, Mizuki,” he murmured.

Mizuki laughed. “I smell like I haven’t showered in like a day and a half,” he said cheerfully. He straightened, carefully, steam already rising from the warming spray as it hit the chilly tile. Mizuki turned inside Clear’s arms, enfolding him in another hug, pressing their faces together. It felt so good, just to stand like this, pressed skin-to-skin with Clear, being able to just _hold_ him.

He’d been so afraid he’d never get to do that.

They got into the shower, Mizuki first, helping Clear step in after him, and then he got to the business of showing Clear exactly how much Mizuki wanted him, and how beautiful Mizuki thought he was. He grabbed the bar of soap, and as he worked it into a lather in his hands, he dropped a trail of kisses over Clear’s shoulder and collar-bone, skating his soapy fingers everywhere he’d kissed. He worked his way down one arm, then grabbed the other, kissing the delicate skin at the inside of Clear’s wrist, then started working his way back up to Clear’s other shoulder.

“Mizuki,” Clear said, and stopped; Mizuki glanced up at him, smiling. Clear flushed. “I want to touch you, too.” His face was very intense; his hair was slicking down against his scalp now as the water sluiced over them both, rendering him endearingly messy.

“You can touch me as much as you want,” said Mizuki. There was a piece of hair stuck over Clear’s eye. Mizuki reached up with the hand not currently covered in suds to brush it out of his face. “Anywhere you want.”

Clear smiled, and turned his face to kiss Mizuki’s palm. Then he put both hands on Mizuki’s arms, sliding them along the slope of his deltoids, cupping the backs of his shoulders. They spent a few minutes doing nothing but exploring each other’s body, pressed chest-to-chest under the hot spray, their kisses and little touches getting steadily more intimate. Mizuki had forgotten just how sexy it was to feel someone else’s fingers working soap through his wet hair, and how electrifying it was to feel teeth scrape over his lips, drag along his his jaw. For a novice, Clear was doing _great_ , almost like he knew exactly where all of Mizuki’s most sensitive spots were; when he stopped his trail of kisses in order to suck a mark to life at the base of Mizuki’s throat, Mizuki almost came on the spot, gripping Clear’s arm hard and suppressing a groan.

Mizuki found himself with his spine pressed against the wall, Clear rocking shallowly against him, his breath hot and unsteady against Mizuki’s cheek. Mizuki could feel the hard length of Clear’s erection against him, sliding wetly up and down the crease where Mizuki’s hip met his stomach. Mizuki slid his soapy hands down Clear’s back, cupping his round ass in both hands and squeezing. Clear made a noise, turning his face into Mizuki’s throat, and stopped moving.

Mizuki stopped too, kissing Clear’s temple, nuzzling his wet hair. “Is this okay?” he murmured. Clear nodded vigorously. “Okay. If you want me to stop, I will, anytime.”

“Okay,” came the muffled response. Mizuki kissed Clear’s hair again, and this time Clear tilted his face up again enough to kiss Mizuki back, hard and insistent. Mizuki squeezed Clear’s ass again, pulling him open a little. He slid his first two fingers down the crease, pressing the tip of his forefinger against Clear’s pucker, guessing he would be just as sensitive there as any human. He was right. Clear’s hips twitched, and he moaned, a ragged edge to his noises that hadn’t been there before; he rocked his hips against Mizuki a little, rutting blindly into his hip again. Mizuki’s dick ached at the rawness in his voice, and he promised himself that soon he’d find out just how loud Clear could be when he was coming apart.

“I wanna show you something,” he murmured. “It’s gonna feel really good.” Clear panted open-mouth against his lips, deliciously needy, and his glassy eyes weren’t quite tracking, but after a moment he nodded.

Mizuki pushed Clear gently away from him, turning him around so that their positions were reversed: Clear braced against the wall, Mizuki in front of him. He took a moment to appreciate the vision Clear was presenting right now: pale skin gone flushed and pink from arousal and the heat of the shower, lips bitten and kiss-swollen, eyes dilated, fine hair a wet and rumpled mess. His pink nipples stood out from their areola, so tempting and sensitive-looking—Mizuki couldn’t resist. He leaned in, taking one into his mouth, sucking it until it pebbled against his lips, the better to flick it with his tongue and hear Clear’s sharp inhalation of breath. “Mizukiiii,” he groaned, and Mizuki’s cock ached at the whine that crept in at the end there, desperation starting to get the better of him.

“I know, I know,” he murmured. He switched to the other nipple, sucking at it till it hardened, too, reaching down at the same time to grab Clear’s prick and stroke him a few times from base to tip, listening to how Clear gasped. “I’m so mean. Don’t worry.”

Mizuki dropped to his knees then, gazing up at Clear with a smirk. Clear stared back down at him, eyes wide, and Mizuki dropped a kiss at the crest of Clear’s hip before wrapping his hand around Clear’s cock again. It pulsed under his fingers, thick and hard, engorged with what Mizuki would have sworn was blood, but the awareness that it wasn’t no longer bothered him. Whatever lay under his skin, Clear was everything he wanted, and more.

He’d wanted to do this for awhile now, even before the shit-show disaster the last few days had been, but the sight of Clear’s thick cock had just solidified his desire. “Tell me to stop if you want me to,” Mizuki said once more, and then wrapped his mouth around just the head of Clear’s cock, suckling greedily. Clear made a noise like he was going to fall over, and Mizuki felt a hand slide through his hair, clutching as though for dear life. A glance up revealed that Clear’s other hand was braced against the wall, and his eyes were still glued to Mizuki, Clear’s whole face gone bright red.

Clear tasted—good, he decided. A little salty, more than a little sweet, which was unusual, but not at all unpleasant. Mizuki flattened his tongue, pushing it against the swollen glans in his mouth, listening to the noise Clear made in response, and then took more of him in, letting his lips stretch wider to accommodate his girth as Clear’s dick pushed deeper into Mizuki’s mouth. It had been awhile since Mizuki had sucked someone off, but he’d always enjoyed it—it made him feel at once powerful and kind of slutty.

He reached between Clear’s thighs with his other hand, gathering Clear’s balls into his palm, rolling the sac in his hand and tugging lightly. At the same time, he started to bob his head, opening his mouth and dropping his jaw as he sucked Clear’s dick. “M-Mizukiiiii…” Clear trailed off, thrusting shallowly against Mizuki’s mouth, a quick little jerk like he couldn’t quite help himself. Mizuki choked, but only for a moment, and then with the hand not between Clear’s thighs he reached up to squeeze Clear’s hip in what he hoped was an encouraging gesture, starting to move his head in earnest.

It didn’t take long. Clear got the idea quickly, thrusting very shallowly into Mizuki’s mouth in time with Mizuki’s rhythm, his breath increasingly ragged, and Mizuki was so turned on that he had to take himself in hand, too, jerking himself hard. “M-Mizuki—” Mizuki swallowed him down, all the way down, throat working around the head of Clear’s prick, and Clear came with a harsh cry, hips stuttering against Mizuki’s hand. Mizuki took as much as he could, coughing and pulling away despite himself. Some of Clear’s come dribbled down his mouth, and he wiped it away, blinking up at Clear and grinning.

“Mizuki-san,” said Clear dizzily. Mizuki stood up—carefully, _fuck_ he should know better than to kneel on his damn tub floor, ow—and then gathered Clear into his arms, kissing his temple. “Oh…” Clear blinked at him, and then beamed, as beautiful and angelic as any Raphaelite cherub.

“You taste pretty good,” Mizuki said, and meant it; Clear tasted faintly sweet, like flavored water, not bitter at all. He wrapped both arms around Clear, hugging him as he settled down from what might well have been his very first orgasm ever, trying (and failing) not to feel too pleased with himself.

Clear flushed, covering his face with one hand. “Mizukiiiiii, that’s kind of dirty, isnt it?”

“Pfft.” Mizuki grinned, and kissed Clear’s eyelid. “No, it’s not. It’s totally fine. I liked it.”

Clear bit his lip. Mizuki thought his chest might burst from how _cute_ Clear was. “Is it really okay?” he asked shyly. “It’s selfish of me, I should be making you feel good…”

“Uh-uh. No way.” Mizuki cupped Clear’s face in his hand, turning him around so that Mizuki’s back was towards the spray of hot water, the better to look Clear in the eye without any distraction. “I love making you feel good,” he said. “That makes me really happy, to see you feel good. Okay? So don’t feel bad. I want it.”

Clear relaxed a little. Mizuki stroked his thumb along Clear’s cheekbone, and Clear smiled at him. “That’s better. Now, how do you feel about getting out of the shower and going back to the bedroom, yeah?”

“Okay!” Clear kissed Mizuki’s thumb.

“Awesome.” They’d been in the shower so long that the water was starting to get cold, and Mizuki was ready to move to a more horizontal surface for the next act. Clear might have come once, but Mizuki hadn’t, yet, and he had every intention of wringing another orgasm out of his beautiful boyfriend before he finally succumbed himself. Mizuki twisted the knob, shutting off the shower, and leaned out of the tub, reaching for the lone towel slung over the rack, wishing vaguely he’d planned this a little better.

“Oh, oh, let me!” Clear grabbed the towel from his hands before Mizuki could even respond, and proceeded to give Mizuki the most tender, thorough towel-drying of his life. Mizuki kept fucking it up by distracting him, though, grabbing him and pulling him upright to steal kisses. Clear squawked and swatted at his hands, and then went back to drying him off. Mizuki had to all but wrestle the towel away from him to take his turn at drying Clear off. It took much longer than it would have if they’d each just dried themselves off, and Mizuki couldn’t give a damn.

They _finally_ made it back to the bedroom. Mizuki made a beeline for the nightstand by his bed, yanking open the bottom drawer and rummaging through it till he found the half-empty bottle of lube. It had been too long since he’d used it on anyone but himself, but it was the good stuff. Except— “Clear,” Mizuki said slowly, turning around and crawling onto the bed after his lover, “is there any kind of—uh, chemicals that we shouldn’t use?”

“What do you mean?” Clear glanced questioningly from Mizuki’s face to the tube in his hands.

“Well, I assume you’re not… self-lubricating.” #45 on Mizuki’s mental ‘List of Things I Never Expected To Ask My Partner.’ “But I just wanted to know if using, like, silicon-based lube was gonna damage you or something.”

Clear stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Why would it damage me and not you?” he asked. “I am very durable, Mizuki.”

“No, I know that, I just…” Mizuki heard himself reciting a list of what kinds of lubes you could and couldn’t use with specific materials for sex toys, and knew that somewhere his ex that had worked at the sex toy store was laughing at him. “I just didn’t want to accidentally use something that would hurt you,” he said instead, and when Clear smiled, he smiled back.

“It should be fine,” Clear said. “I am not easily damaged while my nanorepair function is in working order.”

“Okay,” said Mizuki. “And sometime, you’re gonna have to explain that to me, but for right now I’m just gonna take your word so that I can keep making you feel good.”

But Clear had other ideas. “No, I wanna make _you_ feel good,” he said firmly, kneeling up. Mizuki found himself being pushed gently but irresistibly onto his side, and then his stomach.

“Clear, what are you,” he began, and then felt a soft kiss at the bottom of his ass-cheek, right where it met his thigh. “Ngh—!”

“Tell me if I should stop,” Clear said, repeating his own words back to him. Mizuki grinned like an idiot and shoved his arm against his mouth.

“Okay,” he said, or started to, except that it was cut off by the guttural groan he let out at the sudden feel of wet warmth sliding up his ass crack. “ _Clear!_ ”

Clear made a soft noise in return, and a moment later Mizuki felt Clear’s hand at his hip, massaging a thumb along the edge of his iliac crest. Then Clear’s tongue returned, wet and hot and oh god pushing _right_ at Mizuki’s asshole, an insistent press of muscle that made Mizuki yelp and jerk against the bed, overly sensitive.

“Clear,” he panted, squirming. “Are you—that’s—”

“Hold still,” said Clear, his voice muffled. Mizuki could feel the vibration of Clear’s voice in his skin and muscle; Clear pushed both hands against Mizuki’s asscheeks, pushing them apart ever so slightly. Mizuki groaned as Clear redoubled his efforts, his soft lips pushing against the sensitive ring of muscle.

The sensation was exquisite, like being slowly undone from the inside-out. Mizuki had been rimmed before, but not for a _long_ while, and he’d forgotten exactly how much it made him want to dry-hump the bed and climb the walls in equal measure. What Clear lacked in finesse he made up for in devotion, seemingly tireless as he thrust his tongue into Mizuki’s ass, the wet warmth of his mouth against his sensitive pucker driving Mizuki to rut helplessly against the bed. Sensation spread down through his ass and thighs, what felt like every muscle in his groin aching with pure lust.

“Fuck!” Mizuki’s hips jerked again as Clear’s hand slipped between his thighs, fingers cupping Mizuki’s balls, the base of his palm pressed against the ridge of flesh just behind his sac. Mizuki shoved his fist against his mouth to stifle his groan as Clear massaged him, some of his spit leaking down Mizuki’s crack. Mizuki’s trapped cock throbbed; he was sure he was leaking against the bed. 

A stray thought floated up through his addled brain like a bubble in carbonated water: that Clear might be new to this, but he sure as hell wasn’t the reticent virgin Mizuki had imagined he would be.

“Clear,” he groaned, lifting his head. “Clear, stop, please…”

“Am I hurting you?” Mizuki could picture Clear’s wide eyes without even having to look, and he bit his lip to keep from laughing.

“Oh no. It doesn’t hurt at all. But you gotta stop for a sec.” Clear obliged, sitting up and easing off him. Mizuki sat up too, flopping over onto his side to reach for his boyfriend, kissing him soundly, ass-breath and all. Clear resisted for all of a half-second before relenting, kissing him back eagerly, clutching at Mizuki’s arms.

Mizuki finally broke away, staring at Clear’s flushed face. “That was amazing,” he said. Clear beamed, and then his smile faded a little as he glanced down.

“Mizuki, you still haven’t…” He gestured at Mizuki’s cock, which was standing out at strict attention from the thatch of his pubic hair.

“Yeah, I know,” said Mizuki, grinning slightly. “I was hoping I could do it inside you.” He said it lightly, but the sudden dull flush in Clear’s throat went right to his dick, and when Clear’s mouth fell open in a little _oh_ Mizuki couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss his full lips again, capturing his quiet sigh.

“Yes please,” Clear breathed.

Mizuki didn’t have to be told twice. He grabbed up the lube, and sixty seconds later Clear was in his lap, straddling his thighs, Mizuki’s slick fingers pressing into his tight little hole. Mizuki watched, rapt, as lust and pleasure and surprise all chased each other across Clear’s face, Clear’s mouth falling open as he panted and squirmed on Mizuki’s hand.

He was so beautiful. Mizuki wanted to bend him over every surface in his apartment and fuck him till he was crying, till he was shaking and covered in sweat and come, till he was a blissed-out boneless mess in Mizuki’s bed. He wanted to go back to Clear’s list and go through every single item on there, wanted to show Clear just how good it was possible to feel, show him just how good Mizuki was going to be to him from here on out. He wanted to give Clear so much that it was scary, but he could figure that out later.

“Clear…” Mizuki slid his hand down to Clear’s hip, pulling his other hand out and grabbing for the bottle of lube, intending on slicking himself next. Belatedly, something occurred to him. “Do you want to use a condom?” he asked.

But Clear was shaking his head. “No,” he said, and grabbed the bottle of lube out of Mizuki’s hand. “It’s not necessary. And I want to feel you.” He smeared some lube on his own fingers, reaching down to wrap his hand around Mizuki’s erection. He stroked Mizuki once, twice; Mizuki’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t look away. “Mizuki…”

Clear lowered himself down, Mizuki’s hands on his hips to guide him. Mizuki let out a strangled groan as he pushed past the ring of muscle and flesh. He felt Clear shudder under his hands, saw Clear’s head tip back and his mouth fall open as he sank down onto Mizuki. “Hey,” Mizuki gasped, eyes going wide, “be careful, you’re gonna—”

“I don’t want to wait,” Clear cut in hotly. He fixed his eyes on Mizuki, and then with a gasp he sank the rest of the way down onto Mizuki’s cock, his butt flush with the tops of Mizuki’s thighs. Mizuki leaned forward, snaking an arm around Clear’s waist, holding him close and groaning at the tight, slick heat of Clear’s ass. Clear’s hands rose, resting light on Mizuki’s shoulders. Clear exhaled, hot air gusting across Mizuki’s temple.

“Clear…” Mizuki dropped his face, nuzzling the precious hollow at the base of Clear’s throat. “You feel so _good_.” He mouthed wetly at Clear’s collarbone, listening to Clear’s faint, breathy noises. They shifted, and a tremor ran up Clear’s spine. He tightened around Mizuki, the sensation going right to the heat curling through Mizuki’s stomach. “You feel okay?”

“Ngh… yes.” Mizuki felt Clear kiss the top of his head. “It’s good.”

“Good.” Mizuki pulled back, looking up into Clear’s opalescent eyes. “Ready to try moving?”

Clear smiled at him, and kissed him open-mouthed, his tongue sliding past Mizuki’s lips. His hips shifted, and Mizuki squeezed his hand on Clear’s thigh, sighing into their kiss. He thrust up to meet Clear, and then they moved together, so sweet and easy that Mizuki could barely believe it. Clear was a natural. And it didn’t matter that the word hardly had meaning for him; didn’t matter that Mizuki knew what lay under that prettily-flushed skin, knew that metal and not bone gave those precious fingers their graceful shape.

Mizuki would have guessed that Clear was a talker during sex—he babbled on so much at other times—but this time, at least, he was wrong. Clear wasn’t exactly _quiet_ , though, making all sorts of hot, needy noises as he rode Mizuki, moaning and clutching at Mizuki’s shoulders while Mizuki ate up his throat with messy nips and kisses. Mizuki, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to shut the fuck up. _You’re so fucking sexy_ and _baby your ass is so tight_ and a dozen other stupid, filthy endearments just falling out of his mouth like water, things he’d never say if his brain wasn’t frying like an egg from how amazingly hot and good Clear was right at this moment.

He wasn’t gonna last, but he had to, just a little longer, just until Clear came again. He bit his lip, bit the inside of his cheek, hard. Clear’s eyes had gone glassy, his hips jerking unevenly as he got closer to his orgasm. His fingertips dug hard into Mizuki’s shoulders, and he leaned heavily against Mizuki’s chest, his whole body tight with arousal.

“Clear,” Mizuki gritted out.

“Mi—zuki, I’m—!” Clear moaned, breaking off mid-sentence. Mizuki groped between their sweat-slick stomachs, wrapping his hand around Clear’s straining prick.

“Come on, baby,” he panted, jerking Clear’s cock hard, other hand tight on Clear’s hip. “Come on, let it go, I wanna see you come—”

Clear thrust helplessly against his hand, a few stuttering jerks of his hip, and then he came with a high, wordless gasp. Mizuki fucked him through it, thrusting up into his spasming body, and seconds later he followed Clear down, coming with a rough yell.

They fell to the bed, clumsy and exhausted, staying upright only by virtue of the fact that they were holding onto each other. Mizuki squirmed around just enough to dislodge himself from inside Clear, grimacing slightly, and then re-settled with a low groan. He thought seriously about taking a short power-nap with his face mashed against Clear’s clavicle; Clear sighed, shoving his face against Mizuki’s sweat-damp temple. “Yeah,” mumbled Mizuki, “me too.”

Clear laughed. “I love you,” he said dizzily. Mizuki’s felt his face split with what was a no-doubt idiotic smile.

“I love you too,” Mizuki said. He lifted a hand, threading his fingers through Clear’s hair, which was as wet with sweat as his own. Clear made a soft, happy noise, and hugged Mizuki around his shoulders. Mizuki hugged him back. “I love you, too,” he repeated, and shut his eyes.

There was a pause. Mizuki might or might not have slipped away for a moment, just feeling the warmth of Clear in his arms. Clear sat up a little straighter. “Mizuki,” he said, in the tone of a child preparing to ask his parent for the candy bar he really, _really_ wants, “can we try a different position this time? I think dog-style sounds fun.”

Mizuki’s eyes flew open. “Are you seriously ready to go again already?” he demanded. “Oh my god, Clear, my dick is gonna fall off!”

Clear’s eyes were very wide and earnest. “I don’t want it to fall off!” he said anxiously. “Does it hurt?”

Christ, he was too much. “No, it doesn’t hurt,” Mizuki said, and kissed the corner of Clear’s mouth. “Just… gimme a few minutes, okay? We can do whatever you wanna do next.”

“Okay,” said Clear, and there was no disguising his eagerness. Was it any wonder Mizuki had fallen for him? He would have better luck persuading himself not to breathe.

Well. There were worse things than exhaustion via sex, he knew. Much worse. And maybe even some things that were better.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue. (A special day has come, and Mizuki has made very sure he's ready for it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the final chapter! Apologies for the wait, but it's all done now. Thanks so much, not only to my tireless, patient, and devoted beta circ_bamboo, and to my partner in crime joannaestep, but also to [misanthrobot](http://misanthrobot.tumblr.com/) for letting me hound them and prattle about meta while finishing this fic. 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! It has been such a pleasure sharing this with you. ♥

“Yes. Yes, I know.” A pause. Mizuki let out a sigh, exasperated. “Look, Yamamoto-san, I—yes, I know that.”

A flicker of motion caught his eye, and Mizuki turned to see a snatch of color disappear around the corner at the far end of the hallway. He smiled despite himself, momentarily tuning out the droning of the stubborn old storekeeper at the other end of the phone. Clear was so busy getting ready for their guests that he hadn’t sat down for more than thirty seconds since they’d gotten out of bed that morning. Mizuki could smell the fruits of his labors wafting out of the kitchen, the savory scent of cooking cabbage making his stomach growl.

He tugged absently at his collar; it was early spring, and still relatively chilly, but he was feeling too warm in his current outfit. He was wearing a silk burgundy dress shirt under a white suit, complete with white tie. It was the nicest outfit he owned, the one he reserved for weddings and other special occasions.

_Ruizaki-san? Are you listening to me?_ Mizuki winced as the shopkeeper’s querulous voice all but pierced his eardrum. “Yes, I’m so sorry,” he said immediately, turning away to face out the window again. “Yamamoto-san, I know I am asking a lot, but today is really, really important. I’ll pay twice your rate. I don’t care about the cost. But please… can’t you do this for me?”

Yamamoto paused. _I cannot refuse such a generous offer,_ came the gruff response. _Your partner is lucky._

“Not half as lucky as I am,” Mizuki told him, and hung up.

Paying twice the old man’s asking price was highway robbery, but Yamamoto Ichiru made the most beautiful floral arrangements in the entire city, and his services were highly sought-after. The flowers Mizuki had ordered from another florist had already arrived and were on display downstairs, but Mizuki had decided that they weren’t quite enough. Today was special; he would spare no expense. So double the going price for a same-day delivery, it was. It wasn’t like Mizuki was swimming in cash, but there was a tattoo expo coming up soon and he hoped to do well there, so he figured it’d turn out all right in the end.

Besides, he wanted to surprise Clear.

Speaking of. “Mizukiiiiiii!” Clear’s voice floated down the hallway to him from the kitchen, and Mizuki grinned, setting the phone down and hurrying towards the sound of Clear’s voice.

“I’m here,” he said, stepping into the doorway. “What’s up?”

Clear stood in the middle of the kitchen, bent over the stove. Weeks of patient reassurance and encouragement had brought Clear out of his shell a little, and instead of the tattered pants-and-lab-coat he’d once sported, he had taken to wearing a wide variety of more interesting clothing—some Mizuki’s, some bought with Mizuki’s money explicitly for him.

(The first time Clear had shown interest in wearing more feminine clothes, Mizuki had been a little surprised, but mostly because he’d kind of thought Clear was the sort of person who didn’t much care what he wore. But even if Clear had been human and not a robot, Mizuki would not have given a single solitary fuck what he wore, or what he wanted Mizuki to call him. He thought Clear was as stunning in a dress as in a three-piece suit, and he quietly but firmly let it be known to their acquaintances that everyone else would think so too if they wanted to be welcome in Mizuki’s shop.)

Right now he was in his pink apron, covering a gorgeous diaphanous gown, made of some filmy material that floated around him in a cloud of soft blue and purple. He still wore boots, but they were a light blue that off-set the dress, with a modest kitten heel that was low enough for Clear to walk in. The gown was an early present from Mizuki to Clear, bought specifically for him to wear to their party; the boots had been a present from Yukie. Mizuki thought he looked ravishing.

At this exact moment, though, he mostly looked distressed. “I forgot to get pink champagne,” Clear said plaintively. He wrung his hands, pausing in his circuit around the kitchen, hovering by the multitude of covered dishes arrayed on counter and table. “And I can’t leave the kitchen, or the food will burn!”

“No worries,” said Mizuki reassuringly. He crossed the floor to Clear in three steps, dropping a kiss on Clear’s cheek, digging out his Coil. “I’ll call Koujaku; there’s a liquor store between his house and here, so he and Aoba will pass it anyway.”

“I feel bad asking them to make another stop…” Clear eased a little despite his protest, and he bent over the stove, checking on the sizzling food in the pan. Mizuki’s stomach rumbled again at the sight and smell of the okonomiyaki. Clear had made it for him once or twice before, and every time it was like he’d died and gone to heaven. His days of eating peaches out of a can were long-gone, mostly thanks to Clear’s amazing cooking skills and general joy in cooking for his loved ones.

“Clear.” Mizuki took Clear by the shoulders, squeezing gently. “Look. Today is your special day. I _promise_ that they will be happy to grab a few bottles of champagne on their way here, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” said Clear, and smiled. The relative peace lasted all of about three seconds. “Ahhhh, oh no, Mizuki I forgot my mask, I think I left it at my grandpa’s house—”

“I have your mask,” said Mizuki patiently. “It’s right here.” He reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and brought out a small black domino mask, holding it up for Clear to see. Clear deflated, visibly relieved. “I’ll hold on to it, okay? If you get nervous, just come tell me, and I’ll cover for you while you go put it on.”

“Thank you,” Clear sighed. He went up on his tip-toes to kiss each of Mizuki’s eyes, and then followed up by kissing Mizuki’s mouth, too.

“You know I don’t mind,” Mizuki said, smiling. He let his hands float down to Clear’s hips, resting lightly on the waist of his apron. “I’ve got your back.” Clear knew now that Mizuki thought he was beautiful, and that all of their friends had no problems with his appearance, but his anxiety about his bared face still got the better of him from time-to-time. The domino mask was a compromise, a step up from his old gas mask; it didn’t provide half as much coverage as the gas-mask had, but it was sufficient to ease some of Clear’s agitation when he got nervous, as he was prone to doing around a lot of people.

Clear took a deep breath. He held it for several seconds, then let it out slowly. The habit had been Koujaku’s suggestion; breathing was about as necessary for Clear as a perm job on a poodle, but having a specific action to take when he needed to remind himself to calm down had proven helpful. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “When you are done, can you help me start bringing everything downstairs? I think everything is ready, and people will get here soon.”

“Of course.” Mizuki squeezed Clear’s hip, then stepped away to send a message to Koujaku’s Coil. Then he tucked his Coil in his pocket and grabbed one of the wide serving trays they were borrowing, and started stacking it with plates of food. “You really outdid yourself,” Mizuki observed. “This is way more food than we’re gonna be able to eat.”

“I know,” said Clear. He sounded a little embarrassed. “But I wanted to make all my favorite food, and Aoba-san loves takoyaki, and I was afraid of leaving something out…” He sighed, staring at the vast spread of food still waiting to be put on trays and carried downstairs.

“Whatever,” said Mizuki, leaning cautiously over to try to open the door to the downstairs. “It’s your party. Do what you want.” He grinned at Clear, and Clear grinned back, his expression relaxing a little. Mizuki waited as Clear finished stacking the rest of the plates onto the other tray, and then they lifted the trays and balanced them on their shoulder. Mizuki went out the door first, making his way carefully down the steps and into the bar area, in which had been set up several flat tables that Mizuki normally kept in his storage closet.

They went about setting everything up on the first big table: this serving platter filled with yaki-tori, this one with takoyaki, that one with pasta and potato salad, another with the okonomiyaki, cut into smaller serving-sized pieces. A plate full of onigiri sat on the end, and at the other end sat three bowls, full of dumplings and mochi and donuts. Mizuki ran to the bar and got out the alcohol he’d bought for today, mostly sake and a few other things. They weren’t actually entertaining as many people as sometimes came when Mizuki used his bar to host Ribsteez parties, but that was probably for the better, considering that this was Clear’s party. The other table was reserved for whatever their guests decided to bring.

Decorations had already been put up, streamers and vases of flowers arrayed around the room, giving it more _joie de vivre_ and color than it had probably ever experienced during its life as a bar. On the wall was hung a huge poster, light blue with a floating golden brain taking up the center of the space. Over it were the words “CONGRATULATIONS CLEAR” and underneath it was printed the date. Yukie had had it made for them; it was so amazingly tacky that Mizuki had nearly pissed himself trying not to laugh when he’d first laid eyes on it. Naturally, Clear had loved it immediately and insisted on putting it up in pride of place.

They had barely finished setting everything out when the first knock came at the door. “Coming!” yelled Mizuki, and hustled over. He opened the door, and in stepped Noiz. Noiz was in the most expensive silk grey suit that Mizuki thought he had ever laid eyes on; it had a fine hunter green pinstripe pattern and a matching green pocket square, and a fine white button-down shirt underneath it. He still had all his piercings in, but the hat was gone, and the difference the clothes made in his appearance was shocking.

“Are we first?” Noiz glanced around, and then back to Mizuki, who was trying not to stare. He noticed abruptly that Noiz was carrying a few packages wrapped in dark, glossy paper and gaily-colored ribbon—presents for Clear, of course.

“Yeah, you’re first. You clean up well,” Mizuki noted. Noiz smirked, and then stepped out of the way, holding the door open for the figure behind him.

Sei stepped into the door, cutting a very different figure from the waif they’d rescued from an abandoned hospice bed three months ago. He was in a fine black-and-white patterned kimono, accented with a deep crimson obi. His hair was pinned back, and he leaned on a silver cane with fine patterns etched into its side—a distinct improvement over the wheelchair he’d been confined to for months. He greeted Mizuki with a soft smile, which Mizuki was pleased to actually be able to return.

“Hi, Mizuki,” Sei said. Noiz shut the door behind him. “Aoba and Koujaku should be here soon. I think they were just grabbing some champagne from the store.”

“Sei-sannnn! Noiz-sannnn!” Clear appeared at Mizuki’s shoulder, darting past him to envelop first Noiz and then Sei in warm hugs. “Thank you so much for coming!”

A faint smile touched Noiz’s lips at the embrace, which he returned, albeit a little woodenly. “C’mon, Clear, I’m not gonna miss your first birthday,” was all he said, though. “Somewhere I can put these presents?”

“Oh, sure. On the table over there.” Mizuki gestured at the second table they’d set up, the one they’d left empty.

“Your suit looks so expensive, Noiz-san! It looks so good on you!” Clear was all but bouncing in his blue heels, his dress swirling attractively around him. “Oh, come and have some food, please! Here, this is your favorite, isn’t it?”

“Pretty sure it’s your birthday and you should be making what _you_ want to make,” Noiz pointed out, but he deposited the presents and let Clear lead him over to the buffet of amazing food without any further protest. Noiz might have his issues, but a lack of appetite wasn’t one of them.

“You guys really did a great job decorating,” Sei observed, once he’d steadied himself after the pure enthusiasm of Clear’s hug. He tipped his head at Mizuki, his smile softening. “Clear must be really proud.”

“Yeah, he is. But I think mostly he’s just happy to get the chance to do all the things we take for granted. Dumb stuff, like… like paying taxes, and having a job, and voting.” Mizuki grinned, extending his elbow to Sei, who slipped a pale hand through the crook of Mizuki’s elbow and allowed himself to be walked over to the spread of food.

“You know, I only actually got to vote for the first time last month, myself,” Sei observed. “Aoba and Koujaku helped me register, and they mailed the ballot to my house because I wasn’t feeling well enough to make the trip.”

“…Oh.” Shit. Mizuki thought about all the times he’d totally blown off voting as pointless, and felt a little like trash.

Sei smiled at the chagrin in Mizuki’s voice. “It was fun,” he said gracefully. “I’m looking forward to comparing notes with Clear, when he gets to vote in the next election.”

“He’d carry you, you know,” Mizuki said. “If you wanted a lift to the voting center.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Sei, and then Clear came over, taking Sei by his other arm and holding a plate for him, his excitement tangible as he chattered about all the different dishes. Noiz was already chipmunk-cheeked with a full plate, standing off to one side, and Mizuki stifled a laugh at the amount of food Clear immediately attempted to press on their too-thin friend. Then the doorbell rang again, and Mizuki ran to answer: this time it was Yukie and her girlfriend, a curvy blonde girl named Setsuna with a big grin and cat’s eye glasses. She and Yukie were both in fancy dresses, Setsuna in black-and-white polka dot, Yukie in a summery orange frock, both of them carrying more presents for Clear.

Mizuki hung back as more and more people arrived, all of them with their arms full of gifts, dressed in their spring finest. Clear was a bubbly blur, embracing everyone warmly and inviting them to eat as much as he could convince them to pile onto their plates. He was positively radiant with happiness, his normal shyness not in display today. Mizuki contented himself with only the occasional stolen kiss, not wanting to detract at all from Clear’s special day. They’d get to celebrate together later, when they were alone again, and Mizuki would make sure Clear knew just how stunningly attractive he was like this.

Not that he wasn’t _always_ attractive. Frankly, Mizuku thought he was just as precious when he was wearing his old ugly gas-mask and his shabby lab-coat, or when he was in one of Mizuki’s old t-shirts, curled up in sleep mode on the couch. He knew he was biased, but while he knew that once upon a time he had thought Clear merely odd, instead of precious, the idea was totally alien to him now.

Aoba and Koujaku arrived, Aoba in a blue kimono and Koujaku in his finest red one, Aoba’s hair pinned up in a high ponytail and held in place with what Mizuki was almost certain was one of Tae’s mother-of-pearl hair pins. They had the pink champagne, as promised, as well as another couple of presents to add to the pile. Mizuki watched the way that Aoba made a beeline for his brother once he and Koujaku had congratulated Clear; watched the way Sei and Aoba sat down together off to one side, no doubt wanting to catch up a little bit.

Sei was another remarkable change the last few months had seen. He’d woken up the same day that everyone else had, and while Tae Seragaki might have bitched long and loud about having another mouth to feed, Mizuki knew that she was overjoyed—not just that the long nightmare was finally over, but that this long-endured wrong had finally been put to right. Aoba had given up pretending that he and Koujaku weren’t serious, relinquishing his bedroom to his brother and moving in with Koujaku.

(For his own part, it had taken Mizuki awhile to get past the whole near-death-of-everyone-he-loved thing. He kept it mostly to himself, though, because for a similar span of time, it had looked as though Sei had woken up just in time to pass on from the world that had been so cruel to him. A combination of home cooking and medicine, plus some judicious twin-therapy via Aoba’s unique gift, had finally brought him around, though. When Mizuki and Clear had come by to say hello, Mizuki had been stunned at the sweet young man who’d finally greeted them.

“Thank you,” Sei had said, pale and exhausted but still managing to smile. “Aoba told me what you did, Clear. And you too, Mizuki. Thank you so much.”

“Uh,” Mizuki had said, articulate as always. Clear had been better, holding Sei’s hand and warming to him immediately. Mizuki had sat on the other side of Sei’s bed and let Clear talk for both of them, sorting out his complicated feelings as he watched the play of emotions across Sei’s tranquil face. But he’d still managed to wish Sei well when they left, and mean it.)

“Mizuki-san?” Mizuki started guiltily, shaken out of his minor daydream. He glanced up into Clear’s nervous face, and only after several seconds had passed did he realize the slip on Clear’s part. The party around them was in full swing, all or almost all the guests having finally arrived. A good dozen or so people milled around, snacking on Clear’s amazing food.

“You okay?” Mizuki asked softly. He reached out, resting his hand lightly on Clear’s upper arm, rubbing his thumb against his boyfriend’s bicep. “You want your mask?”

Clear bit his lip. “It’s not the people,” he said softly. “It’s—” He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder as Yukie walked by.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Mizuki said immediately. “Just for a second.” He put his hand on Clear’s shoulder, guiding him towards the stairs. Aoba looked up at them questioningly, and Mizuki mouthed _get the cake out_ at him. Aoba’s face lit up, and he gave Mizuki a small nod in return.

They made it up to the apartment, and Mizuki shut the door carefully behind them. “Okay,” he said. “What’s wrong, baby?”

Clear clasped his hands together, wringing them anxiously. “Nothing! I just—I thought…I thought I would feel different.”

“Feel different?” Mizuki raised an eyebrow. Clear floundered for a moment, struggling visibly to find his words. Mizuki waited patiently, guiding him over to the kitchen table so they could both sit down.

Finally, Clear took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out. “When Noiz-san told me about the personhood test being offered in Tokyo, I was so excited,” he said. He spoke slowly, picking his words with obvious care. “I thought that if I could pass the test, I would—feel different.”

Noiz had told them about the test just a month after Sei had woken up. He’d stopped by with paperwork on it, actually, a newspaper clipping and an article in a magazine. _You should take this test,_ he’d said to Clear. _You’d pass for sure._ Clear had been thrilled, right up until learning that he’d have to go to the mainland alone, since Mizuki had a few…. stains, as it were, on his permanent record. Between his status as a Ribsteez leader and the fact that law enforcement on Midorijima was lax, at best, he had no trouble on the island, but travel to the mainland was a different story. Clear had finally gone, with lots of encouragement and a return-trip ticket paid for by Mizuki, and there had been a full week after he came back during which Clear had been _convinced_ that he had failed the test. When the results had come in the mail, Clear had cried—from joy, not from distress. Mizuki might or might not have shed some manly tears, but Clear didn’t care, and Mizuki wasn’t gonna tell anyone else.

His results had come with a glossy diploma, gold font on a dark blue background, similar to what one might receive at graduation (if diplomas were designed by a drunk freshman majoring in graphic design). _The bearer of this certificate is granted full personhood under the law_ , it read, in its glowing script. _All rights and obligations derived thereof are conferred upon the bearer as long as they shall live._ Beneath the text floated a huge golden brain, its sulci and gyri outlined in silver on the gold. It was the same brain that Yukie had had printed on Clear’s banner. Mizuki still thought it was the tackiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, but it made Clear happy, so he didn’t much care.

“Feel different how?” Mizuki asked. He put out his hands, and after a moment Clear gave Mizuki one of his own, letting Mizuki massage Clear’s hand with both of his.

“I don’t really know,” Clear admitted. “But even when I got the results, I didn’t feel any different. I thought maybe today… when I had my first birthday, that maybe I would feel like—” He broke off.

“Like a human? Like a person?” Mizuki’s eyebrows went up. “Clear. You ever think maybe the reason you don’t feel any different is because you _aren’t_ any different?”

“I wanted to be different, though!!” Clear’s face twisted, and Mizuki got up, coming around to hug Clear from behind the chair, giving Clear both his arms and his chest to hide in.

“Baby,” he murmured. “Baby. It’s okay. It’s okay…” He held Clear for a moment, smoothing his hand down Clear’s back. “I’m gonna tell you a secret.”

“I like secrets,” Clear mumbled. Mizuki smiled.

“Everybody expects to feel different on important birthdays, and nobody ever does,” said Mizuki. Clear quieted, leaning into Mizuki’s chest. “I know that now you have a fancy diploma that says you’re a person, and that it’s easy to think that—because you didn’t have it, that before you were different, but I promise that everyone here today loves you and doesn’t give a shit whether you have that certificate or not. We didn’t need a test to tell us that you mattered. You were already a special person to us.” He paused, then added, firmly, “To _me_.”

Clear sighed. He looked up at Mizuki from the circle of his arms, and to Mizuki’s relief, some of the tension had left his face. “It’s really okay that I don’t feel any different?” Clear asked after a moment. Mizuki smiled, and kissed Clear’s nose.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s really okay. I promise. You are just fine.”

“Okay,” said Clear, and smiled back.

“You wanna wear your mask? It’ll make you feel better.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Clear reluctantly. As he spoke, he clung harder to Mizuki. “Everyone is here to see me, it’s already so rude that I had to come upstairs.”

“Pffft,” said Mizuki, which was as close to _fuck ‘em if they don’t like it_ as he was willing to say when Clear was attempting to be decorous. “It’s your party, you get to do whatever you want to make yourself feel good and have a nice time. And nobody will mind. Besides, you look pretty in it.” This last might be strictly a matter of opinion, but as at this point Mizuki thought Clear would look good in a burlap sack, he didn’t feel a reason to qualify it.

Clear hesitated just one moment more before relenting. “Okay,” he said, and when Mizuki produced the slim black mask out of his coat pocket, Clear put it on immediately. The smile he gave Mizuki once it was on said volumes about his self-confidence, stronger and more relaxed than he’d looked almost all day.

“Ready to go back downstairs?”

Clear beamed. “Yes! Let’s hurry!” Mizuki laughed, and followed Clear to the door. If he was right, Aoba should have had just enough time to get out the final surprise, and no one would need to know about Clear’s momentary lapse into panic.

At the start of their relationship, he would never have guessed that Clear would suffer from anxiety the way he did, but it was somehow one of his more endearing traits. Mizuki supposed that if Clear had been the kind to be effortlessly unconcerned about everything, Mizuki might have started feeling kind of inadequate after awhile. And yeah, okay, that wasn’t the most mature or selfless thought he’d ever had, but it was always nice to feel like he had something to offer someone like Clear, who in addition to being beautiful and gifted and kind, was also immune to illness and the ravages of age. In Mizuki’s mind, he was perfect.

(Clear, of course, would have had a good dozen things to say on _that_ subject. Mizuki had made the mistake of joking about how he’d have died alone if he hadn’t met Clear, and earned himself an indignant earful in response. _That is not true! You’re so easy to love, I don’t know why you were even single when I met you! You are the kindest man I know, and you always look out for your friends, and you are so fair, and clever, and I really love it when you put your tongue in that spot down between—_ )

Clear pushed the door open, and the room erupted into cheers. “Surprise!” cried a dozen voices, all faces turned up towards them.

Clear stopped at the landing at the top of the stairs, staring in shock at the huge three-tiered cake sat in pride of place on the same table as his presents. The cake was stunning, and obviously professionally decorated; it was coated in luscious-looking blue frosting, painted to resemble the ocean floor, with a ring of bright pink and orange and purple coral at the bottom, interspersed with tiny fish and anemone, all delicate fondant rosettes. All across its surface floated painstakingly-rendered jellyfish, their long tentacles almost appearing to drift in an ocean current. The cake topping was another jellyfish, and wrapped in its graceful tentacles was **HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLEAR!**

“You got me a cake!” he cried. “It’s so beautiful! Ahhhhh!!!” He hopped up and down, flapping his hands in excitement, and then he hurried down the stairs, careful not to trip in his heels. Mizuki followed more sedately, close enough to catch Clear if he fell, feeling like his grin was going to split open his face.

“Happy birthday, Clear,” said Aoba. He was grinning, too, and he held out his arms, nearly toppling over at the force with which Clear latched onto him. “Oof! Hahaha…”

“Aoba-sannnn,” Clear wailed. “Was it your idea? Did you make it?!”

“If Aoba had made it, it would be on fire right now,” said Koujaku, an expression on his face that said he couldn’t quite stop himself even though he knew he was gonna get it. Aoba shot him a dirty look, and Koujaku coughed into his arm.

“Or else he’d have used salt instead of sugar,” added Sei, and Mizuki laughed; someone had told Sei that story, then. Aoba’s glare switched to his brother, and Sei adopted an expression of total innocence, eyes wide.

“Koujaku helped me plan it,” Mizuki cut in, to avoid the threat of impending fratricide. “One of his clients works at Greenbush, that bakery on Aoyagi street.”

“It’s almost too beautiful to eat,” Clear said, wringing his hands. “But I don’t want your hard work to go to waste! Ah, I love it so much!”

“Well, you can admire it while you open your presents,” said Koujaku. He reached forward to snag one of the gifts off the table and held it out to Clear. “Go on, birthday boy, enjoy your day.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Clear took the gift, which was wide and flat enough that Mizuki was able to guess at its contents even before Clear ripped it open. Clear’s gasped in delight as he pulled the package open to reveal a sky-blue yukata, respondent with a large green-and-yellow waterlily pattern printed across it.

“It’s from me and Aoba,” said Koujaku with a smile.

“Happy birthday, Clear!” Aoba added, chiming in. “You can wear it to the cherry blossom festival.”

“Thank you so much!” Clear cried. He set his package down and went to hug Koujaku and Aoba again. The rest of the packages went the same way, Clear alternating between excitement and embarrassment at how thoroughly he was being spoiled.

As it happened, Mizuki thought Clear got some very nice gifts. Aside from the yukata, he also received a beautiful tea set from Yukie, a brand-new Coil from Noiz that was loaded with a dizzying selection of music and videos for Clear’s enjoyment (Mizuki would have suspected that Noiz was trying to hit on Clear, but by now he’d realized that Noiz was just… like that), and two more dresses—one from Tae, who apparently had exquisite taste in clothing, and another from Mizuki himself. The dress from Tae was a cream halter-neck dress with a delicate flower pattern, an olive ribbon tied around the waist, and gathered hemline; Mizuki had chosen a simple belted dress with a sunny yellow flower pattern on white linen with a scalloped hem.

(”It reminded me of the scarf you left for me while I was in the hospital,” Mizuki told him, when Clear opened it, and for a few embarrassing moments he was sure Clear was going to cry. Then Clear burst into a bright smile again, and Mizuki suddenly had his arms full of lavender-scented robot, and all was right with the world.)

From Sei, Clear got a book on the history of robots and All-mates, a silver necklace with a jellyfish charm on it, and a soft silk scarf, the latter two of which Clear immediately put on; Sei tried and failed not to look too pleased. From other members of Dry Juice, Clear received an assortment of smaller gifts, including a delicate pair of dangling jellyfish earrings, some rosemary cooking oil, and a brand-new stainless steel wok. He also received a handsome leather jacket with the Dry Juice logo on it, and then Clear really did cry, a few traitorous tears leaking down his face despite (or perhaps because of) his obvious joy. Mizuki supposed no one could really blame him; going from no family at all to a very large, loving one would be enough to drive anyone to tears.

After presents, Aoba got out the camera on his Coil and started ordering everyone around to different positions so he could take some photos—some goofy, some very cute. By then Clear was finally ready to cut the cake, which turned out to be caramel-flavored and absolutely _exquisite_. Clear insisted on making tea, but when pressed he did at least let Sei and Aoba help him, so everyone sat and had tea and cake. Mizuki put on a movie, an old one that he figured at least 75% of the people present would know and either enjoy, or be able to ignore, and then he settled on the couch. Clear curled up against him, slipping out of his boots and leaning against Mizuki’s side.

All in all, Mizuki thought the party was a huge success.

The Seragakis, Koujaku, and Noiz were the last to leave, staying to help Mizuki and Clear clean up. (At least, Sei tried to help, but was relegated to the couch after Aoba threatened to tell Tae that Sei was over-exerting himself again.) Finally, Noiz left, Sei on his elbow again. Koujaku looked after them speculatively.

“Do you think they’re dating?” he asked. He was looking at Mizuki as he asked it, but it was Aoba who answered.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think Sei’s ready for anything like that yet. I think they’re just friends, you know?” He shrugged. “They have more in common than I realized.”

Mizuki thought about that horrible vision of Noiz covered in chains and his own blood, thought about what Sei had been through, and had to wonder. He’d never asked anyone about the awful things he’d seen in that dream-world, not wanting to invade anyone’s privacy more than that whole experience had already done, but he could maybe see what Aoba was getting at.

Clear smiled. “They both like video games, too,” he said. “Sei-san is very good at them; he used to play them a lot, before... Noiz-san told me that Sei-san is the only person to ever beat him at anything. Aside from Aoba-san, in Rhyme.”

“Oh,” said Mizuki, nonplussed. He was never going to be a fan of Rhyme, but it had bothered him a little less, lately. “Well, good for them. I’m glad.”

“Me too,” said Aoba, and Koujaku and Clear both nodded. After that, there wasn’t much left to do, the sun already low in the afternoon sky. Aoba and Koujaku gathered their things, exchanging one last round of congratulations and well-wishes before slipping out the door.

Mizuki shut the door with a soft sigh, turning back to smile at Clear. “You worn out yet?”

Clear let out a long exhale. “Yes,” he admitted after a moment. “It’s okay, right? Our friends are such good people, and I had so much fun, but…”

“But you’re ready to be quiet and not talk to people anymore,” Mizuki supplied, and Clear nodded gratefully. “Yeah, it’s okay. Most people feel like that after a big event. It’s totally fine.” He paused, as if remembering something, and held up one finger. “Hold on. Crap, I almost forgot…”

Clear paused in the middle of taking off his mask and running his fingers through his hair, peering up at Mizuki in confusion. “Mizuki, what—”

Mizuki was already jogging up the stairs, ducking into the apartment for a moment before emerging with the delivery he’d taken by the back door in the middle of the party, when Clear was busy making tea for all their guests. “Happy birthday, baby,” he said, holding out the vase of flowers. From his arms erupted a glorious burst of color, red and orange and yellow and purple: orchids, calla lilies, roses, tulips, coxcomb, freesia, and green-leaf.

“Mizukiiiiii….” Clear put his hands to his face, covering his mouth for a moment. “They’re so beautiful. Y-you didn’t have to—”

“I know,” said Mizuki. His mouth went dry, all the things he’d planned to say falling out of his head. He came down the stairs, gently setting the vase and its gorgeous bounty on the table. “I just… couldn’t help myself.”

Clear cleared his throat. He came over, gently touching the petals, running his fingertips lightly over the delicate curls of color. Then he spied the tiny white envelope, tucked away in a plastic clip in the middle of the flowers. He plucked it out, turning it over and opening it, frowning as he saw there was no card.

“What is—” He broke off. Mizuki kept his mouth shut as he watched Clear up-end the envelope, shaking out its contents into his palm: two tickets, printed on glossy card stock with gold embossing and elegant font. 

“Mizuki,” Clear breathed, staring at the show announced on the tickets: _I, Robot._ “How did you get these? I thought it was sold out!”

“It is,” said Mizuki, grinning crookedly. “But one of my team-mates knows a guy, and… I tracked some down.” The play was touring Asia, having started in London, an adaptation of a very old sci-fi novel that was increasingly popular in light of all the A.I. politics the last few years had seen. Clear had wanted to go the minute he’d heard about it, but the tickets had sold out months before Mizuki had even met him, back when the date was first announced. The fact that Mizuki had been able to get tickets at all was honestly some kind of miracle. 

“Mizuki,” Clear said, and stopped. Mizuki looked at him, alarmed at how watery that one word had said. Clear’s eyes were wet, his face flushed, but he reached for Mizuki’s hand. Mizuki gave it to him, his chest tight; Clear fumbled for a moment, but then managed to regain control of himself enough to continue. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “It’s too much.”

“I know,” said Mizuki, fidgeting a little. “It’s just—” He hesitated, a dozen things coming to mind, all of them wrong for the moment: too much, too soon, too out of place. Today was Clear’s special day; Mizuki’s anxieties or thoughts about the future did not belong. “You deserve them,” he said at last. “And I wanted to be able to give them to you.” 

Clear made a tight noise, and a smile broke out on his face. “Thank you. I can’t believe you spent that much money on them, and when I get a job I am going to pay you back—”

“No! No, they’re a gift—”

“I am your partner,” Clear interrupted. “So let me be your partner. I want to pay for stuff, too. I want to take care of you the way you take care of me.” 

Mizuki had no comeback to that. Not when he’d chickened out on the other thing he’d thought repeatedly about giving to Clear today, something still tucked upstairs in a tiny box in Mizuki’s bedside cabinet: a slender pair of matching silver rings. So he just shut his mouth, biting back a sudden tightness in his throat, and nodded.

He held out both his arms, and Clear came into them, hugging him tightly. Mizuki held him like that, eyes shut tight, feeling hot and tingly all over, breathless like he’d just sprinted a mile.

He knew that a wonderful birthday party and an as-yet unspoken promise didn’t mean much, in the face of what might lie ahead of them; Clear might break down beyond the ability of any of them to repair, or he might well outlive Mizuki, or—who the fuck knew what else. They had no way of knowing. But Mizuki had recently been taught just how fragile life was, and he had no intention of wasting even a minute of it. And he knew that if he spent it with Clear, it would never feel like a waste.

“Happy birthday, Clear,” Mizuki whispered. Clear leaned up and kissed him; it was the only answer he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo, lots of chapter notes this time! 
> 
> \+ If you thought the dress I described Clear in at his birthday party looks [a lot like this one](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/post/82210749955/joannaestep-mizuclear-headcanons-continued), you are not wrong!  
> \+ The [dress from Tae](http://www.modcloth.com/shop/dresses/indigo-gardens-dress-in-botany); the [dress from Mizuki](http://www.modcloth.com/shop/dresses/soiree-of-light-dress).  
> \+ The [yukata](http://i.imgur.com/QrEbALZ.jpg) from Aoba and Koujaku.  
> \+ The [scarf](http://www.modcloth.com/shop/scarves/the-tahiti-is-on-scarf) and [necklace](http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/247/c/3/jellyfish_necklace_in_purples_and_greens_by_tinfoilhalo-d5dlwkj.jpg) from Sei; the designer for the last item is [here](http://brandeeblank.blogspot.com/).  
> \+ The flowers that Mizuki ordered for Sei look like [this](http://i.imgur.com/QSL3USV.jpg).
> 
> And finally, [I, Robot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot) is not a play (yet, that I know of) but a book by Isaac Asimov that, if you are a fan of robot feelings, you might want to check out. Its sequels are also excellent, if rather dated.


End file.
